China.org: In your opinion, after Macao’s retrocession to China, has this political change had any impact in the role of Macao as a link between the West and the East?

Ambassador: With what I just told you I have somehow answered to that question. I would say to complement my previous remarks that that was the historical role of Macao for centuries, not only between Portugal and China, but between the West and the East in general. It was a peaceful settlement, established for reasons of mutual and pragmatic convenience, necessarily, and it played for centuries a significant role as a regional and international port (I would recall, for that matter, that for almost one century, till 1639, the trade China-Japan used Macau as the gate to China). That would alone explain the importance Macao had in the past, but it served also for all kinds of exchanges between the two parts of the world. It should be recalled that the Portuguese were the first who arrived to China by sea in 1513, by Jorge Alvares, and we settled in Macao in the middle of the 16th century.

The Government of the autonomous Special Region of Macao understood the importance of that cultural and historical heritage and, as I said, promoted, together with the Ministry of Commerce of China, the creation of the Macao Forum for the Economic and Trade Cooperation between China and the Portuguese speaking countries, which has proved to be quite useful for Macao, for mainland China and also for our countries. So we are quite happy with this development seeing that the Government of Macao has been very clear in encouraging the pursuit of these goals thus reinforcing the links between mainland China, Macau and our countries.