China–Portugal relations (Portuguese: Relações entre a República Portuguesa e a República Popular da China or Relações China-Portugal, simplified Chinese: 葡萄牙共和国与中华人民共和国的关系 or 中葡关系; traditional Chinese: 葡萄牙共和國與中華人民共和國的關係 or 中葡關係; pinyin: Pútáoyá gònghéguó yǔ zhōnghuá rénmín gònghéguó de guānxì or zhōng pú guānxì), can be traced to 1514 during the Ming dynasty of China.

[3]: 85 Trade between the two countries have increased since the resolution of the longstanding issue of Macau's future and the economic reforms of Deng Xiaoping in the early 1980s.

[5][6] Portugal's exports to China are electric condensers and accessory parts, primary plastics, paper, medicinal, textile goods and wine.

[10] Around then, Portugal established trading activities in what is now known as Southern China, gradually expanded into Macau and paid rent to the Ming Empire.

It was fairly successful, and the local Chinese authorities allowed the embassy, led by Tomé Pires and brought by de Andrade's flotilla, to proceed to Beijing.

[11] Tomé Pires' impression of the Chinese was that they were "white like us [brancos como nós], the greater part of them dressing in cotton cloth and silk".

[12] Relations between the Portuguese and Chinese soured when Fernão's brother Simão de Andrade arrived with a fleet at Guangzhou in 1519.

He attacked a Chinese official who protested against the Portuguese captain's demands that his vessels should take precedence in trade with China before those from other countries.

[29] Though the frequency of Portuguese piracy was not comparable to the surge in Wokou attacks experienced after the Ming Dynasty attempted to enforce its Haijin policy.

[32] The Malaccan Sulatan had been swayed by the international Muslim trading community that the Portuguese posed a grave threat after their capture of Goa.

[45][46] The Chinese forced Pires to write letters for them that demanded the Portuguese to restore the deposed Malaccan Sultan back to his throne.

When they received his reply, the Chinese officials proceeded to executed the Portuguese embassy by slicing their bodies into multiple pieces.

[54][55] Finally, in the early 1550s, the Canton authorities recognized the strategic importance of the “frangues” - these strange barbarians, from far away, skilled in trade, effective in war, but few in number.

In 1554, authorization was finally obtained for the establishment at the mouth of the Pearl River, ten years after they began to deal with silver and silk.

The decline of authority of the Qing dynasty allowed the rise of numerous pirate groups, active around the commercially important Pearl River Delta, that captured trade vessels, assaulted seaside populations or forced them to pay tribute, but did not interfere with European shipping initially.

[57] After being defeated several times by the Portuguese Navy, on 20 April, Quan Apon Chay formally delivered his fleet and weapons, which now numbered about 280 ships, 2,000 guns and over 25,000 men.

Cheung Po Tsai would in the future make formal visits to the Leal Senado of Macau to meet several of the Portuguese officers present at the fighting, among them Gonçalves Carocha.

[3]: 84  In 1951, the Salazar regime sought to re-characterize Macau not as a colony but as an overseas province of Portugal, which it viewed as part of a plural-continental but nonetheless unified and indivisible Portuguese state.

[3]: 85  In 1979, following the formal establishment of diplomatic relations, the two countries reached a secret agreement to characterise Macau as a "Chinese territory under Portuguese administration".