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The article analyzes the figure of Victor Hugo de Azevedo Coutinho (1871–?), born in Macau, proposing him as a privileged case for understanding the historical connections between Portugal and the overseas territory, particularly in the context of the transition from the Monarchy to the First Republic. Starting from the premise that his personal, professional, and political trajectory is intertwined with the processes that marked the end of the monarchical regime and the republican cycle, the study constructs an interpretative narrative with a chronological thread, articulating biographical dimensions and political-social conjunctures. Methodologically, the work draws on historiographical frameworks and the cross-referencing of biographical references already produced by local authors (such as Manuel Teixeira, Leonel de Barros) with factual elements relating to his naval training and public role. The central argument holds that Azevedo Coutinho, despite his origins in Macau, was shaped by Luso-Atlantic institutional networks and, once in Portugal, assumed relevant positions, becoming an "interpreter" of decisions in environments of high political instability. The conclusions highlight Macau as a formative and symbolic space, revealing the circulation of republican projects and the participation of elites with overseas connections in the reconfiguration of the Portuguese state.

The article proposes a comparative analysis of the maritime expeditions of Zheng He (Ming) and Vasco da Gama (Portugal), focusing on how the "dimension" of the missions and their historical "consequences" were interpreted, mythified, and reconstituted by historiography. Proceeding from the difficulties of reading the past—the "fog of memory" and the "mystification of history" arising from documentary gaps, political interests, and traditions of celebration—the authors argue that both official accounts and popular narratives tend to convert complex strategic choices into heroic gestures that are teleologically self-justifying. Methodologically, the text mobilizes a comparison of trajectories, objectives, and results on an Atlantic/Indian Ocean and Sino-maritime scale, engaging critically with historiographical debates and with contemporary uses of the past (including distortions publicized by widely circulated works). The conclusions maintain that the two fleets should be read less as "absolute ruptures" and more as situated responses to specific economic, political, and technological networks, whose impacts varied according to institutions, routes, and forms of commercial control. By recommending transnational studies, the article aims to reduce cultural biases and offer a balanced appreciation of the "virtues" attributed to maritime heroes in the Luso-Chinese space.

In 1615, two Jesuits — Francesco Buzomi and Diogo de Carvalho — were sent from Macau to Cochinchina, a territory governed by the Nguyễn princes, accompanied by Japanese preachers. The article argues that this decision by the Society of Jesus cannot be understood merely as a spiritual enterprise, but as an articulated response to the geopolitical and economic conjuncture of the early seventeenth century, marked by commercial expansion and maritime confrontations between European powers, especially with the intensification of the Luso-Dutch rivalry in the Asian space. The author contextualizes the “why” of the 1615 choice, connecting it to the Portuguese need to consolidate local political alliances and ensure stability for the trade routes linking Macau and Malacca, particularly within the framework of monsoon navigation. Methodologically, the text combines historical-diplomatic contextualization with an interpretive reading of Jesuit institutional motivations and the requests emanating from the Luso-Asian circuit, highlighting the role of intermediaries and petitions such as that of Fernão da Costa. As results, it shows that the mission presents itself as an instrument of cultural and religious mediation capable of sustaining political and commercial relations in a territory relatively “open” to Portuguese dynamics since the sixteenth century, but little explored by the Jesuits.

The article reassesses the role of the earliest Portuguese representations of China produced in the early sixteenth century, focusing on the manuscript known as Francisco Rodrigues’s *Book and Atlas* (c. 1512). Based on the codicological analysis of the set, the comparative examination of the internal elements of the codex (including the coexistence, in the same volume, of a copy of Tomé Pires’s *Suma Oriental*) and the cartographic comparison among maps, sketches, and legends, the author contests historiographical interpretations that attribute to the atlas an immediate function of geopolitical updating and direct support to the centralized cartographic policy of King D. Manuel, according to a supposed logic of “revision and sending” in a later period. The main conclusions argue that the *Book and Atlas* should be understood less as a normative instrument of “state cartography” and more as a composite of navigational and observational materials compiled at different times and under different conditions. It is argued that the 69 panoramas of the Lesser Sunda Islands archipelago (Alor to Java), possibly derived from earlier notebooks from the post-1512 return, were not consistently integrated into the corresponding charts, nor do they appear to have influenced subsequent Portuguese cartography of Southeast Asia and the routes to the South China Sea. Thus, the article repositions Rodrigues’s work as evidence of the pragmatic process of maritime knowledge production, dependent on local mediations and limitations of integration among drawing, text, and cartography.

The article argues that knowledge of the historical relations between Portugal and Southeast Asia is more robust when cooperation between historians and diplomats is intensified, especially in the context of international commemorations that simultaneously function as public production of history and as an exercise in cultural diplomacy. Drawing on the example of the “500 years” celebrations of relations between Portugal and Thailand, the text argues that the interaction between state agents and researchers transforms the commemoration into a methodological “brainstorming”: it allows for discussion of what should be celebrated, how to historically frame the facts, and how to manage contemporary historical sensitivities. The methodology is essentially qualitative and essayistic, based on observation of institutional experience and on reading of diplomatic precedents with historiographical interest, from compilations and studies produced by consuls and chargés d’affaires (late 19th to 20th century) to contributions from figures associated with the mission in Bangkok and the international circulation of knowledge. Among the main results, the article concludes that, in the Thai case, the recent colonial “baggage” conditioned the narratives little, facilitating a more productive exchange; and it argues that transferable lessons can guide similar initiatives for other Southeast Asian countries (Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, and Vietnam), reinforcing the historiographical dimension as an instrument of mutual understanding.

The article proposes a historiographical overview of the Portuguese presence in Siam, focusing on the so-called “feitoria” of Bangkok in the nineteenth century, situating it within the broader framework of Luso-Siamese relations. The author articulates the continuity between contacts initiated in the sixteenth century, the dynamics of military modernization, and the strategies of commercial and religious intermediation, arguing that the basis of these relations combines military aid, political demands, and the attainment of material conditions for European presence in Siamese territories. Methodologically, the approach is based on a critical review of sources and historiographical production, mobilizing references from chroniclers and authors contemporary to the initial contacts and discussing the institutional evolution of the Portuguese presences—highlighting mercantile activity, the role of mercenaries, and the tension between jurisdictions and missionary orders. The text concludes that, despite transformations over time, the structural logic of Luso-Siamese negotiation persisted: the circulation of weapons, the need for specialized labor, and religious mediation functioned as mechanisms of consolidation, while European conflicts and ecclesiastical disputes at different times limited the reach of the Portuguese Padroado.

This article examines how Portuguese and Spanish sources from the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries constructed narratives about the culture and exercise of power in the Maluku Islands, emphasizing the articulation between local political forms (sultans, kingdoms/rajas, communities, and statuses such as sangaji and khimalaaha) and the categories of governance employed by the Iberian empires. The central argument maintains that the political-cultural “rupture” associated with the European arrival, although frequently cited, must also be read as a product of imperial disputes—particularly the “Moluccas Question”—and of the needs for documentary, diplomatic, and informational legitimation. Methodologically, the study proceeds through a comparative reading of historiographical production and primary narratives, contrasting chroniclers and travel accounts, with special attention to how the Spanish, supported by extensive administrative reports, produced multiple “accounts” of expeditions (including the Magalhães–Delcano route), while part of the Portuguese writing emerged from itinerant circuits and learned mediations. The conclusions show that the Iberians not only described Maluku but reshaped its hierarchies, converting local cultural systems into a political language suited to asserting sovereignty and strategic knowledge of the spice routes.

The article analyzes the silk trade between Japan and Macau in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, examining the boundary between missionary work and commerce, particularly the role played by the Society of Jesus. The author frames the Luso-Oriental circulation within a “world in motion,” in which the expansionist project simultaneously sought “souls and goods,” and argues that in the Far East the material survival of the Jesuit missions depended on diversified forms of financing, including commercial operations and revenues. Methodologically, the research combines historical contextualization with an examination of documented episodes and financial controversies, focusing on a financial “scandal” in Macau in the 1580s related to investments and profits associated with contracts and the redistribution of silk. The author argues that the Jesuits, despite their religious framework, acted with a business logic: they negotiated silk and expanded revenues in contexts of indebtedness and maritime risk, generating open conflicts with local merchants. It concludes that the case reveals a pragmatic integration between evangelization and mercantile practices, exposing structural tensions within the Luso-Japanese system of economic intermediation.

The article argues that the Chinese Revolution led by Sun Yat Sen (1895–1925), often explained through centers such as Hong Kong, must also be read from the Portuguese-Macanese dimensions which, though undervalued, were structural for his intellectual formation, mobilization networks, and the transnational circulation of ideas. The research adopts a historical-cultural approach along three axes: (1) situating Macao within its geopolitical and sociocultural context in the Pearl River Delta region (Lingnan/Guangdong), highlighting Luso-Western dynamics; (2) shifting the focus from the immediate episode of October 10, 1911 to Sun's broader trajectory, interpreting Macao as an initial window onto the world, a “crucible” of new ideas, a space for early Christian experiences, and a logistical and relay base for his revolutionary missions; and (3) reconstituting the impact of the Portuguese political environment—including the Revolution of October 5, 1910—and European-derived (social-democratic) ideologies on the republican imagination and on projects for a modern, unified, and free China. Drawing on episodes and military, political, and sociocultural turning points linked to Macao, the article concludes that the Sino-Lusophone exchanges conducted through the enclave were a decisive transnational “vector” in China’s political transformation.

The article proposes a geopolitical reading of Portuguese expansion into Asia in the fifteenth–sixteenth centuries, arguing that it must be understood in simultaneity with Ottoman military pressure on Christian Europe. Rather than treating separately the Portuguese maritime advance in the Indian Ocean and the "Turkish invasions" in central and Mediterranean Europe, the author demonstrates, through a critical review of primary and secondary sources, that the dynastic and confessional strategies of the House of Avis (Portuguese) and the House of Habsburg (Germanic/imperial) formed an articulated whole in the face of a common threat. The analysis mobilizes two theoretical components of the Christian context against Islam: a broad strategy of inter-imperial rivalry (Rome–Constantinople), aggravated by earlier displacements of power following the fall of competing dynasties (such as the Abbasids under Mongol dominion), and the Iberian role within that architecture. As historical and chronological evidence, the author highlights the coincidence between the conquests of Selim I and Suleiman the Magnificent and the reigns of Maximilian I and Charles V, proposing that the Ottoman progression on the Danube and in the Mediterranean directly pressured European projects, while Portuguese expansion redefined routes and commercial controls that connected the Near East to Southeast Asia. It is thus concluded that the articulation between dynastic alliances, military urgencies, and reorderings of maritime commerce integrates the Portuguese expansion into a broader conjuncture of "geopolitical war" between Christendom and the Ottoman Empire.

This article analyzes how the image of Macau was constructed and transformed in Anglophone sources from the Southeast Pacific (with emphasis on newspapers from Australia, Singapore, and Hong Kong) between the mid-nineteenth century and the twentieth century. Drawing on the method of the "reverse gaze"—that is, contrasting the perceptions and imaginations of Anglophone readers regarding "Portugal's Macau" with the historical processes experienced in the territory—the author interrogates the press as a technology for the circulation of knowledge, shaping local identities through external representations. The research mobilizes a selected set of journalistic articles, observing recurring topics (such as political instability, strategic neutrality, forced migrations, and "slave"/coolie labor) and tracing Macau's transition from a prominent international role to a place increasingly subordinated to British economic competition, especially after the rise of Hong Kong. The article concludes that media coverage not only registered structural changes following the Anglo-Chinese conflicts but also reconfigured narratives about Portuguese governmental agency and the moral legitimacy of Macau's port and migratory system. Thus, the Anglophone press emerges as an indispensable historiographical archive for understanding external perceptions and their effects on the cultural framing of Macau.

The article examines Eça de Queirós’s “double gaze” on China, arguing that his literary representation oscillates between a European tradition of oriental exoticization and idealization (inherited from earlier travel models and imagology) and a later discourse of sinophobia marked by Eurocentrism, a moralizing reading of the “East,” and interpretations sustained by historical events such as the Opium War and its effects on China’s global credibility. Through a comparative and intertextual reading, the study articulates the context of European representations of China with the way Eça reconfigures this imaginary in texts and cultural references, revealing tensions between intellectual admiration and aesthetic devaluation, between the recognition of certain civilizational traits and the reproduction of stereotypes about “inferiority,” “backwardness,” and social “degradation.” It concludes that the “double gaze” corresponds not only to personal contradictions but to a discursive strategy typical of his time: China simultaneously functions as a critical mirror of the West and as a depreciated “Other,” revealing how European modernity transformed earlier utopias into narratives of threat and inferiorization.

The article analyzes the continuities and ruptures in the Sino-Portuguese relationship surrounding the "Macao question" during the political transition from 1909 to 1911, within the simultaneous context of the advent of republican regimes in both Portugal and China. The central hypothesis holds that, despite converging in their nationalist impulse and their pursuit of state modernization, the new leaderships in Lisbon and Beijing reconfigured negotiation practices in an uneven manner, revealing both diplomatic persistences and institutional confrontations when sovereignty, jurisdiction, and security in the Macao space were at stake. Methodologically, the study articulates a comparative framing of the "two revolutions" with a historical reading of diplomacy, foregrounding the contrast between internal agendas (the crisis of the monarchical system and republican reorganization in Portugal; the consolidation of the regime following the Wuchang Revolution in China) and the direct effects on instructions and discourse concerning Macao. The findings indicate that the emergence of the new regimes did not automatically nullify previous lines of dialogue: certain management mechanisms and political language endured. However, the period of 1909–1911 evinces relevant ruptures, above all owing to the instability of legitimacy, the redefinition of external priorities, and the difficulty of reconciling different understandings of Macao's status, rendering negotiation increasingly conditioned by internal pressures and by shifts in the international order.

The article examines the political-administrative debate in Macau between 1911 and 1912, when the First Portuguese Republic sought to reform the colonial governance system and reduce the political influence of the Leal Senado. It argues that the controversy surrounding the abolition and/or reconfiguration of this institution served as an initial test of the new republican regime's capacity to reorganize the local power dynamics, favoring groups with closer ties to metropolitan mechanisms against entrenched interests within the Portuguese-descendant socio-economic milieu. Based on a critical analysis of official correspondence, minutes, and interventions produced in colonial and local decision-making bodies, as well as documents published in the Boletim Oficial, the study reconstructs the political sequence involving Governor Álvaro de Melo Machado, the opinions of the Colonial Council, and the drafting of the first Draft Guidelines for Administrative Reorganization (May 1912). The main findings underscore the persistence of resistance articulated by local elites, the relevance of internal dynamics beyond the "metropolitan" level, and the ambivalence of the reformist project, which was interrupted without full implementation amid regional instability and the need for political "rapprochement" with Chinese authorities and population.

The article analyzes the contribution of “Nanban Tçuzu” (通辭) to Luso-Japanese trade in the late sixteenth century, focusing on the role of the Jesuit missionary João Rodrigues as a commercial agent for shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu. It argues that religious mediation functioned, simultaneously, as a diplomatic-economic infrastructure: the permanence and status of missionaries in Japan were tolerated and “regularized” not only for ideological reasons, but above all for the commercial utility linked to the resumption and continuity of Portuguese navigation to Macau. Methodologically, the authors articulate historiographical evidence centered on episodes from 1593–1598—including direct encounters between Rodrigues and Ieyasu, inquiries about the return of the “nao” to Macau, and the management of political fears following damage to Jesuit properties in Nagasaki—with analysis of the dynamics among Japanese authorities, local daimyos, port administration, and mercantile expeditions. Among the findings, it is noteworthy that Rodrigues acted as translator and advisor in contacts with foreign delegations, facilitating the flow of information and access to decision-making networks; moreover, he was tasked with garnering the “favour” of lords and officials, linking the Christian cause to the needs for armaments, silk, and port taxation. It is concluded that “通辭” must be understood as an instrument of commercial governance and intercultural negotiation, in which Rodrigues played a decisive role.

The article analyzes the *Correspondência Luso-Brasileira* as a narrative of intercultural transit between Portugal and Brazil, focusing on the histories of the Pinto da França and Garcez families, and, in particular, the trajectory of Maria Bárbara Garcez Pinto de Madureira (1779–1851). Based on an epistolary corpus comprising approximately 127 letters (1807–1823), the author argues that Maria Bárbara’s writing functions simultaneously as an instrument of reading, mediation, and political intervention, enabling us to trace the progressive negotiation of a hybrid and assertive identity: from spectator-reader to commentator-actor-protagonist-author. Methodologically, the text proposes a contextual and situated reading of the letters, avoiding a positivist “objectivity,” and mobilizes the concept of intercultural translation formulated by Boaventura de Sousa Santos. In this perspective, intercultural comparison demands procedures for seeking proportion and correspondence between cultural, epistemological, and everyday practical differences. As its main conclusions, the article reveals that the epistolary exercise constitutes a continuous work of correspondence between rationalities and worlds, through which it becomes possible to reconfigure belongings, interpret events (including Brazilian independence), and rewrite historical meaning from displaced positions.

The article argues that the cosmopolitanization of Southeast Asian coastal cities between the first and sixteenth centuries must be understood as a direct product of the maritime trade regimes articulated by India and China. By tracing seasonal routes and monsoon conditions—with port stays during transitional periods—the text maintains that the continued presence of crews and passengers, interacting with local populations, generated specific forms of urban cohabitation, sometimes marked by integration and at other times by social and spatial barriers. Methodologically, the contribution operates at a historiographical level: it reconstructs trajectories and connections through an interpretative synthesis of contact chronologies, patterns of maritime mobility, and settlement dynamics. The discussion situates Melaka as a key point of convergence for these networks and as a space where urban emergence intensifies: the scale and strategic role of the strait would facilitate both supply and trade as well as the formation of settlements by immigrants—especially South Asian groups—contributing to the consolidation of local powers. It concludes that the "cosmopolitan city" results not merely from abstract commercial circulation, but from a coastal urban ecology shaped by markets, environmental vulnerabilities (such as fires), and demographic reorganizations that reconfigure identities and sociabilities in port contexts.

The review article presents and evaluates Zhidong Hao's book *Macau: History and Society* (2011), arguing that Macau's history should be read simultaneously as a study of Sino-Western relations over the past four centuries and as a pathway to interpreting the city's unique cultural and identity-related characteristics. The reviewer highlights that Hao frames Macau within the scope of "Greater China" and employs the past as an interpretive method for understanding political, economic, and cultural processes, including sovereignty disputes and dynamics of cooperation and conflict between communities and European powers. The work is structured into an introduction, eight thematic chapters, a chronology, and a bibliography. The initial sections address Macau's formation within the context of Portuguese maritime expansion and the defensive strategies of imperial Chinese power, questioning traditional readings based on "bribery" and proposing the existence of hidden political-military and economic considerations (the "Macao formula"). Subsequently, the evolution of the political system, the model of dual jurisdiction, and the contested notion of sovereignty are analyzed; then the economy and social survival are examined, although the periodization presents limitations due to activities that transcend historical periods. The central chapters demonstrate with particular quality the cultural, religious, and artistic interactions, though a weak effective circulation of skills between Chinese and Westerners is observed. Finally, the book discusses contemporary social problems and formulates challenges for the future, advocating for Macau as a platform for multicultural exchange, symbolically represented by the façade of St. Paul's Church.

This study examines how Macanese ethnolinguistic identity is constructed and negotiated through code-switching and code-mixing practices in Macao. Building on interactional sociolinguistics, the article argues that mixed-language choices are not merely stylistic or referential but perform social actions that index alignment, solidarity, and group belonging in situated discourse. Methodologically, the author adopts Gumperz’s (1982) framework of “we/they-codes” and Myers-Scotton’s (1993) view of code-switching as an interactionally unmarked option, analyzing patterns of switching and mixing among Cantonese, English, Mandarin, and Portuguese within Macanese community speech events. The analysis focuses on three dimensions: (1) social motivations for switching/mixing, (2) discourse functions served by particular mixed codes, and (3) recurrent interactional patterns. The study finds that communicative selection of languages and varieties is closely tied to how speakers position themselves with respect to ethnic boundaries and shared identity claims. Rather than functioning as random alternation, code-switching and code-mixing operate as systematic resources for managing participation, signaling in-group affiliation, and sustaining a distinct Macanese identity amid Macao’s multilingual and postcolonial sociolinguistic landscape.

This article analyzes Portuguese participation in the slave trade in the Philippines between 1580 and 1600, situating it within the Atlantic-Asian networks created after the union of the Iberian crowns. The authors argue that the circulation of people and goods under Luso-Castilian domains and intermediations cannot be understood merely as a product of local practices, but rather as the result of political, diplomatic, and commercial articulations that connected Macau, Malacca, and Manila. Methodologically, the text mobilizes historiographical analysis and critical reading of contemporary sources referred to in the narrative (including episcopal correspondence and official missions), reconstructing the mechanisms by which Portuguese agents sought to secure access and trading bases in China, as well as the impacts of these operations on the Philippine supply chain. In particular, the concession of political-economic space after 1581, the actions of colonial authorities in the Philippines, and the missions sent to Malacca and Macau evince how the pursuit of commodification and maritime security translated, on the social and economic plane, into strategies for the acquisition and transfer of captives. The article concludes that, in the transition between the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the slave trade appears integrated into broader circuits of maritime intermediation and negotiation among authorities, in which the Portuguese acted as agents and beneficiaries.