Bulletin of Portuguese - Japanese Studies ISSN: 0874-8438
[email protected] Universidade Nova de Lisboa Portugal Sousa Pinto, Paulo Jorge de ENEMY AT THE GATES MACAO, MANILA AND THE "PINHAL EPISODE" (END OF 16TH CENTURY) Bulletin of Portuguese - Japanese Studies, vol. 16, junio, 2008, pp. 11-43 Universidade Nova de Lisboa Lisboa, Portugal Available in: http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=36112468002 How to cite Complete issue Scientific Information System More information about this article Network of Scientific Journals from Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal Journal's homepage in redalyc.org Non-profit academic project, developed under the open access initiative BPJS, 2008, 16, 11-43 ENEMY AT THE GATES MACAO, MANILA AND THE “PINHAL EPISODE” (END OF THE 16TH CENTURY) Paulo Jorge de Sousa Pinto1 Catholic University of Portugal Abstract At the end of the 16th Century the authorities in Canton allowed a Spanish vessel to stay in the port of ‘Pinhal’. She had been sent by the governor of Manila with the likely aim of opening a direct channel of communication and trade between Guangdong and the Philippines. Macao reacted immediately, vigorously albeit cau- tiously, considering this a threat to its role as intermediary in China’s contacts with the exterior. It was the climax in the heightening tension between the Portuguese, who had reached the Far East almost a century earlier, and the Spanish who had recently settled on the island of Luzon. Although a brief, inconsequent period, it nevertheless assumed great importance within the framework of the disputes between the Portuguese and the Spanish in Asia, but also of the relationship between them, China and Japan.