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Live from Teatro Armando Cortez at Casa do Artista, first part of the debate moderated by journalist Fátima Campos Ferreira, on the theme "Lusophony in Macau". Guests on the main panel: Jorge Rangel, President of the International Institute of Macau, Jorge Neto Valente, lawyer, Carlos Marreiros, architect, Yao Jingming, professor and translator, Rui Martins, Vice-Rector of the University of Macau, Pereira Coutinho, deputy of the Macau Special Administrative Region (MSAR), and interventions from the audience by Costa Antunes, from the Macau Government Tourism Office, Moitinho de Almeida, Consul-General of Portugal in Macau, João Sousa, General Director of EFACEC Asia-Pacific, João Miguel Barros, lawyer, Henrique de Senna Fernandes, writer, and João Palmeiro, from the Portuguese Press Association.

Second part of the debate program moderated by journalist Fátima Campos Ferreira, broadcast live from Macau, on the theme "Lusophony in Macau," with guests Jorge Rangel, President of the International Institute of Macau, Jorge Neto Valente, Lawyer, Carlos Marreiros, Architect, Yao Jingming, Professor/Translator, Rui Martins, Vice-Rector of the University of Macau, Pereira Coutinho, Deputy of the R.A.E.M., and interventions from the audience by Costa Antunes, Macau Government Tourism Office, Moitinho de Almeida, Consul-General of Portugal in Macau, João Sousa, CEO of EFACEC Asia-Pacific, João Miguel Barros, Lawyer, Henrique de Senna Fernandes, Writer, and João Palmeiro, from the Portuguese Press Association.

Interview with visual artist Isabel Nunes, conducted by Henrique Félix.

Interview with Jacinto Luís, painter, conducted by Raquel Santos.

Interview with Alain Corbel, illustrator and comic book author, conducted by Raquel Santos.

Interview with Rui Paiva, visual artist, conducted by Raquel Santos.

Debate moderated by journalist Daniel Catalão on the disappearance of import quotas for the textile industry in the European space and the consequent need for safeguard measures against the import of textile products from China, with particular focus on the consequences of this situation for Portugal. Studio guests: Paulo Nunes de Almeida, President of the Association of Textiles and Clothing of Portugal, João Loureiro, professor at the Faculty of Economics of Porto, and Arlindo Cunha, economist.

Program presented by José Hermano Saraiva, dedicated to the Portuguese presence in the East, based on the exhibition on display at the National Library, with emphasis on the commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the birth of Venceslau de Moraes, a Portuguese writer and military officer, who in his time was the greatest promoter of Eastern culture in our country.

Antena 1 newscast with current national and international news, covering political, economic, and social affairs.

Antena 1 newscast with news on national and international current affairs, politics, economics, sports, and society.

This article analyzes Chinese laudatory couplets — specifically 牌匾 (plaques), 錦旗 (brocaded banners), and 镜框 (frames) — found in the collection of Dr. António do Nascimento Leitão, a collector associated with the Luso-Chinese milieu of Macau. The author argues that these epigraphic artifacts are not merely decorative objects or local "curiosities," but rather concrete means of producing and circulating social recognition, moral competence, and religious/professional legitimacy within the Chinese communities of South China, whose memory is reactivated through celebratory writing. Methodologically, the study undertakes a documentary and interpretative reading of the textual content and material framing of the pieces, cross-referencing categories of devotion and popular imagery — such as protective figures, deified heroes, and stellar spirits — with the sociocultural function of formulas of praise. As a result, it is observed that the texts of the couplets organize symbolic hierarchies and project a cosmology of protection and prosperity, articulating the collector’s individual memory with collective practices of veneration and credentials of merit. The conclusion is that Leitão’s collection functions as a hybrid cultural archive, in which the identity and continuity of traditions are preserved and recontextualized within the Macanese context.

João de Pina-Cabral’s *Between China and Europe: Person, Culture and Emotion in Macao* is presented as a distinctive contribution to historical and social anthropology, extending the author’s earlier work on Macanese identity and its shifting relation to Portuguese and Chinese heritages. The review emphasizes the book’s central analytic claim: Macao’s social history is repeatedly reconfigured by “incidents” that alter Portuguese–Chinese governance and, in turn, transform how Macanese people understand their own cultural practices. Drawing on field-based insights and sustained historical observation, the study links well-known turning points—particularly the consolidation of formal colonial rule in 1846 under Ferreira do Amaral and its reversal in 1966–67—to symbolic sites and commemorative practices, including statues of colonial figures and monuments whose meanings exceed their official intentions. The review highlights Pina-Cabral’s ability to connect political events to lived emotion and collective memory, showing how local accommodation, resentment, and cultural nuance emerged under changing imperial pressures. Key findings thus foreground the performative power of material symbols (even when plans fail) in mediating personhood, emotion, and cultural affiliation between China and Europe across the nineteenth, twentieth, and early post-1999 periods.

The article critically examines the so-called "(de)cannibalization" of the Portuguese during the first Sino-Portuguese contacts in the context of Ming dynasty China, particularly the recurrence, in Chinese sources, of descriptions of alleged cannibalism practiced by the Europeans. The authors argue that such narratives should not be taken as direct evidence, but understood as products of historiographical and political-discursive processes: the circulation of accounts, subsequent reinterpretations, and the possible instrumentalization by Canton authorities and anti-Portuguese imperial censors. Methodologically, the text reconstructs the genesis and evolution of Chinese information, making a systematic comparison between different Chinese chronicles and compilations and contemporary Portuguese records. Based on the analysis of a set of references—including the work *Yueshan Congtan* (attributed to Li Wenfeng)—the authors demonstrate how the allegation may derive from ambiguous geographical references, local rumors, and successive rewritings, sometimes without verifiable basis. It is concluded that the "official rumor" of cannibalism functioned more as a mechanism of legitimation and othering than as historical testimony, contributing to correct historiographical readings that reproduced these sources without questioning.

The article analyzes the references to Chinese silk found in European printed documentation from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, discussing how this news coverage helped shape perceptions, desires, and commercial practices within the European sphere. Starting from the observation that silk frequently appears in works of the period and that, although trade involved it as a commodity, its value extended beyond a strictly economic logic, the author argues that the printed circulation of "news" about silk also functioned as a mechanism for producing imaginaries about the East, reinforcing the prestige of China as a region of wonders and artistic excellence. Methodologically, the work carries out a historiographic and documentary reading of European editorial production, organizing the contents into thematic nuclei to identify how the origin, material qualities, forms of circulation (including circuits and entrepôts), and social uses associated with the fabrics are described. As a result, it concludes that Chinese silk, even when compared with less expressive European textiles, was perceived as incomparable in lightness, resistance, color, and plasticity, fueling demand among civil and religious elites. Thus, printed documentation not only recorded the presence of the product but also intensified its capacity to impact European society, articulating consumption, status, and cultural fascination.

This research reexamines the circulation, authorship, and material drift of the "Macao Hymno" (also known as "Ao Leal Senado e ao povo de Macau"), a municipal hymn whose score remained for decades either missing or disassociated from its archival records. Against the traditional attribution suggesting that Melchor Vela was a native of Macao, the article demonstrates, on the basis of journalistic and administrative documentation from the late nineteenth century, that the composer was Spanish, despite maintaining close ties with Portuguese communities in Shanghai and Hong Kong and with the president of the Leal Senado, António Joaquim Basto. The investigation draws primarily on minutes of the sessions of the Leal Senado, press reports (including references to Vela's participation in concerts and to the reception of the hymn), and the analysis of material evidence in the manuscript itself (for example, linguistic traces in technical terms). It concludes that the hymn was composed around 1896–1897, offered to the Leal Senado, and immediately performed in concert, but that it never became officially consolidated as a municipal "song"—probably owing to its non-Portuguese origin and the absence of printing, despite the decision to lithograph copies. Finally, the article reconstructs the subsequent trajectory of the manuscript up to the Historical Archives of Macao, clarifying how cataloguing failures and documentary losses contributed to its long invisibility.

The article investigates the tradition of "wind bands" in Macao, framing it as a historical phenomenon of transnational circulation and as a cultural device of memory and local identity. Starting from gaps in the available musicological bibliography—especially concerning wind formations in Portugal—the author proposes a historical-cultural reading that links the arrival and consolidation of bands in Macao to European models, particularly the circuits of French influence on the organization and repertoire of military and civilian bands in the nineteenth century. Methodologically, the study is based on secondary source research and historical-cultural contextualization: it reconstructs the evolution of the concept of "banda" in Europe (from functions of signaling and escorting processions to more complex instrumental ensembles), describes the transformation of the military prototype into municipal and philharmonic bands, and, by historical analogy, explains the mechanisms of transmission to the Macanese context (including the presence of bands associated with education). It concludes that the persistence of bands in Macao is not solely due to institutional continuity, but to the capacity of these formations to materialize European models adapted to local dynamics, contributing to music education, community cohesion, and the construction of a shared cultural identity.

The article analyzes the group of Macao's *shenshi* (gentry) in the mid-Qing dynasty (18th–19th centuries), arguing that their influence transcended the local sphere and articulated with the political, economic, and cultural circuits that structured the city's external relations. Drawing on the classical typology of the *shenshi* in imperial China — divided into upper and lower categories according to the pathways of access to status (examinations, merit-based appointments, and purchase of office) — the study reconstructs the trajectories of the literati and officeholders linked to Macao, with particular attention to the *juren*, the *gongsheng*, and the *zhengtu*, as well as figures promoted through purchase. Methodologically, the research proceeds through a prosopographic analysis, tracing careers, titles, and offices referred to in biographical and documentary sources (including, among others, examination records and works attributed to the individuals in question). Comparison with the Chinese interior allows the author to interpret the Macanese case as a microcosm of social mobility and of the reproduction of prestige. The study concludes that the composition of the group reveals the coexistence of meritocracy and mechanisms of institutional investment, with the upper category concentrating administrative power and literary reputation, while the purchase pathways expanded access to networks of authority that helped shape Macao's social space.

The article argues that the "Historic Centre of Macau" should be understood as the historical result of prolonged contact between East and West, initiated by the Portuguese maritime presence in the mid-sixteenth century and consolidated by nearly five centuries of commercial and cultural interaction. It contends that Macau's strategic location at the mouth of the Pearl River, within a context of intense maritime trade networks, facilitated the circulation of people and knowledge, enabling the accumulation of material and immaterial influences from multiple traditions. The analysis emphasises Macau's role as a gateway for the West to China and as an international window for Ming China, in a process associated with the relaxation of trade restrictions and a cultural openness that reconfigured economic and social practices. Methodologically, the text organises the heritage argument through the articulation between the historical function of the port and urban evidence, identifying the network of streets and squares and the succession of more than twenty monuments and architectural typologies that materialise cultural fusion. It concludes that the inscription of the Historic Centre on the UNESCO World Heritage List (2005) precisely recognises that mutual tolerance and that exceptional legacy of cultural exchange.

This article analyzes the decline of the Portuguese State of India within the context of the strategic and economic shift in the Indian Ocean, emphasizing the manner in which this crisis was reflected in Macao. It is argued that, in the face of the growing structural fragility of the "pepper empire" in the seventeenth century — exacerbated by the dispersion of positions, corruption and bureaucratic-military disorganization, rising maintenance costs, and the European naval offensive — the survival of Macao came to depend on strategies formulated in Spain and Portugal through the arbitrismo movement. Based on a critical reading of arbitrismo documents attributed to Duarte Gomes Solis and Jorge Pinto de Azevedo, the study compares diagnoses and proposals addressed to the royal authority, seeking to identify which measures were advocated and which specific needs were felt in the Macanese settlement. Methodologically, the research articulates textual analysis with historical contextualization, situating the proposed solutions within the conjuncture of Luso-Spanish rivalries and Dutch and English competition. It concludes that the "arbítrios" reveal both the perception of an imperial system in retraction and the attempt to rationalize Macao's role as an entrepôt and logistical node, while simultaneously exposing the material and political limits of the reforms imagined to curb the loss of routes, revenues, and capacity for control.

The article analyzes the Dutch attempt to conquer Macau in 1622, placing it within a broader international framework of the early decades of the seventeenth century. The author argues that the episode cannot be explained solely by European naval rivalries or local Portuguese strategies, but must be understood in light of the transformation of political and economic conditions in East Asia, as well as the official responses of Beijing and the Tokugawa shogunate to external pressures. The research articulates a macro-historical context (post-1600 reorderings in Japan, the decline of Ming power in coastal areas, and the intensification of illicit trade) with the inter-Asian maritime dimension, highlighting networks of circulation formed by Chinese and Japanese merchants, adventurers, and corsairs. Methodologically, the text mobilizes a relational reading between state policies and transnational commercial dynamics: it examines how Japanese authorities calibrated the “sakoku” in view of the economic role of the Chinese (including communities and routes that sustained trade with China) and how the European presence—Portugal and Spain against Holland and England—transformed the balance of forces in the seas of Asia. It concludes that the Dutch attack must be interpreted as a convergent result of European competition in a reconfiguring Asian environment, mediated by the interests and limitations of regional empires.