Parliament Speaker Wraps Up China Visit, Calls Macau a Strategic Bridge Between Portugal and the Lusophone World

The President of the Portuguese Assembly of the Republic, José Pedro Aguiar-Branco, concluded a multi-city visit to China on Friday with a stop in Macau, calling the former Portuguese territory a "strategic platform" for strengthening economic and cultural ties between Portugal, China, and the wider Lusophone world.

A Rare Cross-Party Delegation

The visit — which took Aguiar-Branco through Beijing, Shanghai, and finally Macau — was notable for the breadth of its parliamentary delegation. Five parties were represented: Hugo Carneiro (PSD), Paulo Núncio (CDS-PP), Edite Estrela (PS), Felicidade Vital (Chega), and Paula Santos (PCP). The inclusion of deputies from both the governing coalition and the opposition, including Chega and the Communists, was designed to signal cross-party consensus on the importance of the Portugal-China relationship.

"This represents a great uniform sentiment about how we view the relationship between Portugal and the People's Republic of China, and in particular this dimension here in the Macau Special Administrative Region, which is a strategic platform for this relationship," Aguiar-Branco told Lusa on Friday.

Macau as a Lusophone Gateway

Beijing designated Macau as a platform for economic and trade cooperation with Portuguese-speaking countries in 2003, the same year it created the Forum for Economic and Trade Cooperation between China and Portuguese-Speaking Countries — known as the Forum de Macau. The mechanism was intended to leverage Macau's unique position as a territory with deep Portuguese legal, linguistic, and cultural roots inside the Chinese economic sphere.

Asked whether Lisbon has fully exploited this platform, Aguiar-Branco was diplomatic but suggestive. "We have a vision of assessment regarding the years since the Joint Declaration, regarding what has been done, and what in the future can be developed," he said, pointing to opportunities in trade, culture, sport, and law.

The subtext is that Portugal has arguably underutilised the Forum de Macau. While Brazil and Angola have actively expanded their commercial presence through the mechanism, Portuguese companies have been slower to use it as a springboard into the Chinese market — partly due to scale, partly due to political caution about deepening dependencies on Beijing at a time when the EU has been recalibrating its stance toward China.

Convergence on Multilateralism

Earlier in the visit, during meetings in Beijing, Aguiar-Branco underlined convergence between Portugal and China on the defence of multilateralism and rules-based international order — a message calibrated to resonate with Chinese counterparts at a moment when both countries are navigating the unpredictability of US trade policy under the Trump administration.

Portugal's position as a small, open economy makes it particularly sensitive to disruptions in global trade architecture. The parliamentary delegation's emphasis on multilateral frameworks was as much a signal to Washington as to Beijing: Lisbon intends to keep all diplomatic channels open.

What Comes After the Visit

Aguiar-Branco said he leaves China with a "constructive thought" about future work. Concrete follow-up is expected through the Portugal-China Parliamentary Friendship Group, which will prepare a report on the visit's findings and recommend areas for deeper cooperation.

For Portugal, the strategic calculus is straightforward: in a world where tariffs, sanctions, and bloc politics are fragmenting trade flows, a country with a unique historical and linguistic bridge to China — through Macau and the Lusophone network — has an asset it cannot afford to leave unused.