Chinese people in Portugal
Encyclopedia
Chinese people in Portugal form the country's largest Asian community, but only the twelfth-largest foreign community overall.

Migration history

There are records of Chinese slaves in Lisbon as early as 1540. According to modern historians, the first known visit of a Chinese person to Europe dates to 1540 (or soon after), when a Chinese scholar, apparently enslaved by Portuguese raiders somewhere on the southern China coast, was brought to Portugal. Purchased by João de Barros
João de Barros
João de Barros , called the Portuguese Livy, is one of the first great Portuguese historians, most famous for his Décadas da Ásia , a history of the Portuguese in India and Asia.-Early years:...

, he worked with the Portuguese historian on translating Chinese texts into Portuguese. Other records show that Dona Maria de Vilhena, a Portuguese woman from Evora
Évora
Évora is a municipality in Portugal. It has total area of with a population of 55,619 inhabitants. It is the seat of the Évora District and capital of the Alentejo region. The municipality is composed of 19 civil parishes, and is located in Évora District....

, Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

, owned a Chinese male slave in 1562. Many Chinese men were kidnapped as children from Macau
Macau
Macau , also spelled Macao , is, along with Hong Kong, one of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China...

 and sold as slaves in Lisbon
Lisbon
Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...

. In the 16th century, a small number of Chinese slaves were owned by Portuguese in southern Portugal, 29-34 people. The Portuguese prized Chinese slaves. In 1595 a law was passed banning the selling and buying of Chinese slaves. On 19 February 1624, the King of Portugal forbade the enslavement of Chinese of either sex, but this was often ignored. The Qianlong Emperor
Qianlong Emperor
The Qianlong Emperor was the sixth emperor of the Manchu-led Qing Dynasty, and the fourth Qing emperor to rule over China proper. The fourth son of the Yongzheng Emperor, he reigned officially from 11 October 1735 to 8 February 1796...

 also called for the trade to be stopped in 1744, and reiterated his order in 1750.

Small communities of Chinese people formed in Portugal in the mid-20th century. Some members of the Chinese community in Mozambique
Ethnic Chinese in Mozambique
Ethnic Chinese in Mozambique once numbered around five thousand individuals, but their population fell significantly during the Mozambican Civil War...

 also moved to Portugal as the process of decolonisation in Mozambique began in the 1970s and its independence drew near. However, mass Chinese migration to Portugal did not begin until the 1980s; the new migrants came primarily from Zhejiang
Zhejiang
Zhejiang is an eastern coastal province of the People's Republic of China. The word Zhejiang was the old name of the Qiantang River, which passes through Hangzhou, the provincial capital...

, with some from Macau as well. There were expectations that the 1999 transfer of sovereignty of Macau
Transfer of sovereignty of Macau
The transfer of sovereignty of Macau from the Portuguese Republic to the People's Republic of China occurred on 20 December 1999. Portuguese merchants settled in Macau and governed themselves since the time of the Ming Dynasty , first establishing a foothold in 1535, though Portugal's involvement...

 back to the People's Republic of China would result in as many as 100,000 Chinese migrants from Macau settling in Portugal. Between 1985 and 1996, 5,853 Chinese acquired Portuguese nationality; however, most of these were residents of Macau
Macau
Macau , also spelled Macao , is, along with Hong Kong, one of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China...

 and did not reside in Portugal or migrate there later.

Demographic characteristics

According to surveys undertaken by Chinese associations, Chinese residents of Portugal have a very young average age, with 29.6% younger than 30, and 38.5% between 31 and 40 years old. Over three-quarters live in Lisbon
Lisbon
Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...

, Porto
Porto
Porto , also known as Oporto in English, is the second largest city in Portugal and one of the major urban areas in the Iberian Peninsula. Its administrative limits include a population of 237,559 inhabitants distributed within 15 civil parishes...

, or Faro
Faro, Portugal
Faro is the southernmost city in Portugal. It is located in the Faro Municipality in southern Portugal. The city proper has 41,934 inhabitants and the entire municipality has 58,305. It is the seat of the Faro District and capital of the Algarve region...

.

Employment

82.6% of the Chinese workforce in Portugal are employees. However, the number of entrepreneurs has shown an upward trend, nearly doubling from 9.4% in 1990 to 17.4% in 2000. Four-fifths of the self-employed are drawn from the population of recent migrants from Zhejiang; rates of entrepreneurship in the other groups are much lower. Chinese migrants from Mozambique and the other ex-Portuguese colonies, due to their fluency in Portuguese and familiarity with local business practices, are able to enter the mainstream economy and find professional employment, especially as bank employees, engineers, and doctors.

Most Chinese-owned firms are small family enterprises, in the services, retail, and import-export sectors. Their suppliers are Chinese-owned firms in other parts of Europe; Portuguese firms are among their clients but rarely among their suppliers. There is a tendency for Chinese business owners to seek out areas with few other Chinese, to avoid competition and find new markets.

Further reading

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