Sino-Portuguese relations
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Sino-Portuguese relations can be traced back to 1513 during the Ming dynasty of China. Relations between the modern political entities of the People's Republic of China and the Portuguese Republic officially began on 2 February 1979. China and Portugal established the comprehensive strategic partnership in 2005.
Despite Portugal's size, China has a genuine interest in developing relations with Portugal and grants Portugal a similar treatment to the main European countries and both countries maintain friendship and relative intense relations, this is due to three main reasons, the first and main one is the successful handover of Macau, which is regularly praised by Beijing, giving the issues over Taiwan and the troubled transition of Hong Kong and some tensions with the United Kingdom. A second reason is that Portugal is part of a linguistic universe of over 200 million people, including some countries of growing international importance, with which China wants to promote relations. A final factor is Portugal's prestige in Asia, and the antiquity and peaceful character of relations between Portugal and China.
Sino-Portuguese relations developed from the first Portuguese explorer, Jorge Álvares arrived in southern Chinese city of Guangzhou in 1513. Around this time Portugal established trading activities in southern China and gradually expanded into Macau and paid rent to the Ming Empire.
The first official visit of Fernão Pires de Andrade to Guangzhou (1517–1518) was fairly successful, and the local Chinese authorities allowed the embassy led by Tomé Pires, brought by de Andrade's flotilla, to proceed to Beijing.
However, Fernão's brother Simão de Andrade, whose fleet came to Guangzhou in 1519, managed to quickly spoil the Sino-Portuguese relations, due to his disregard for the host country's laws and customs. Under the pretext of a threat from pirates, and without a permission from the local authorities, he built a fort in Tamão Island, behaving there as if it were Portuguese territory. (Particularly offensive to the Chinese sensibilities was his building a gallows there, and executing one of his own sailors there for some offense). He attacked a Chinese official who protested to the Portuguese captain's demands that his vessels should take precedence in trade with China before those from Asian countries. The worst, however, were his kidnappings of Chinese children and taking them abroad to be enslaved; (untrue) rumors spread that the disappearing children were cannibalized after being roasted by the Portuguese.
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Wikipedia