Paper short abstract:

Macau played a significant role as an interface door of two empires, allowing the exchange of commodities and knowledge. It was able to survive thanks to a privileged position and a delicate adaptive strategy, yet under considerable stress by the turbulence throughout the 16th and 17th centuries.

Paper long abstract:

The foundation of Macau was an important accomplishment on the Portuguese strategy in the Far East, after several decades of clandestine presence in the Chinese shores. The permission issued around 1557 by the Guangdong authorities for the Portuguese to settle in the Pearl River Delta was therefore the success of a pragmatic approach based on private trade and on the association of Portuguese and Chinese informal interests. Yet it was a temporary license and the survival of the city would depend, throughout the centuries to come, on the ability to adapt to changes and to manage the expectations of both Chinese authorities and Portuguese Estado da Índia. It was an odd, informal, officially non-existent settlement that came to prosper thanks to the privileged trade with Nagasaki and to achieve an important rank among the general Portuguese trade frame in Asia. Being some sort of a "merchant republic" in the fringes of Estado da Índia, the city would gradually draw the attention of Portuguese authorities, who gradually tried to achieve control of its activities. However, Macau lived under the frame of severe official dispositions by Ming - and later Qing - imperial policy destined to control and restrain foreign presence in the maritime border of the empire. Macau was a privileged, exclusive door entrance to China. It was therefore some sort of an interface door between two empires that allowed the exchange of commodities, services, knowledge, faith or politics, but also a fragile position under increasing and various pressures throughout the 16th and 17th century.