the Chinese case, to delay the emergence of the first companies, in the strict sense, to the end of the nineteenth century. The institutionalisation of efficient economic practices, risk sharing and Business expansion that occurred in the Mediterranean World was superseded, in the Chinese case until the nineteenth century, by the importance of the continuity of the family, rather than the Business itselE Family and Business in the diaspora, more specifically in the Malay Península/ Western Pacific, is the subject of the next contribution, authored by James Chin. It offers an historical perspective of Chinese immigrant entrepreneurs, who in the beginning were mainly Hokkien from south Fujian and Teochews from eastern Guangdong. The author focuses on five families (Koh, Khaw, Chang, Seah and Tan) and their businesses, between the late eighteenth and early twentieth centu- ries. Chin aims to explore the factors that underpinned the success of these entre- preneurs in an environment that was alien to them. In other words, he attempts to understand which strategies were used by these families to adapt and make their commercial progress possible. Through the five families, the author demonstrates the key role of three factors. Firstly, the patronage of people with both political and economic influence; secondly, the strategy of arranged marriages, pursuing a customary Business practice in tradicional Chinese society for the establishment of stable relationships of trust, which included the Chinese immigrant community and also local elites; and finally, the ethnic networks associated with secret socie- ties, with Chin emphasising the silently-expanded，nature of the Chinese ethnic network abroad. The following chapter by Jorge Semedo de Matos, written in Portuguese, focuses on the Portuguese presence in Asia, and specifically on their maritime trade routes, east of Malacca, with the Chinese Empire in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The author analyses the axes of Portuguese trade with China and explores the main navigation routes that supported it, as well as the adjustments that time and circumstances imposed. In addition to the routes between Malacca and China, the route between Macau and Manila, and the impact caused by the end of the Iberian Union are also considered. Macau and Manila, two cities that have been formally hostile since then, given the confluence of their commercial interests, will, however, continue, according to Semedo de Matos, to meet in Macassar, in the heart of the Indonesian archipelago. The author presents the intensification of the voyages between the two cities, branched off to Timor to purchase white sandalwood. It is precisely the route between Macau and Timor that the author highlights in his title, and whose analysis he presents to close his chapter. The second section, “Contacts and Perceptions: Writing, Publishing and Exhibiting”，begins with a study by Pascale Girard on the first Portuguese embassy to China, between 1517 and 1524, led byTomé Pires. According to contemporary Chinese sources, the embassy was seen as an invasion of China by the Folangji, 12
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