AUTORIDADE IMPERIAL E SIMBOLÍSTICA DA SUA CONTRADIÇÃO – A PROPÓSITO DOS CÓDIGOS DE WAN LI E DE QIANLONG EM MACAU
The article analyzes the nature of Chinese imperial authority in Macao through the study of the normative repositories or "codes of conduct" imposed on the Portuguese settlement during the reigns of Wan Li (Ming dynasty) and Qianlong (Qing dynasty). It is argued that these legal instruments, dated 1...
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| Published in: | Review of Culture |
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| Format: | Articles |
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Instituto Cultural de Macau
January 2002
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| Online Access: | https://www.icm.gov.mo/rc/viewer/pdfViewerParts/40001/2658 |
| Summary: | The article analyzes the nature of Chinese imperial authority in Macao through the study of the normative repositories or "codes of conduct" imposed on the Portuguese settlement during the reigns of Wan Li (Ming dynasty) and Qianlong (Qing dynasty). It is argued that these legal instruments, dated 1614 and 1749, respectively, constituted not merely mechanisms of administrative control and border security, but rather the materialization of a continued political pact — a "stone treaty" — that legitimized the Portuguese presence through the strict acceptance of imperial sovereignty and jurisdiction.
Through a legal-historical approach, the author explores the evolution of the "doctrine of respect and obedience," demonstrating how the Wan Li Code focused on the management of population and fiscal flows, while the Qianlong Code, emerging after serious judicial incidents, represented a tightening of control rules. The study identifies the symbolic dimension of imperial power in these statutes and discusses the process of Macao's autonomization vis-à-vis the Chinese legal order, concluding that the affirmation of the territory's political identity, culminating in the mid-nineteenth century, depended on the neutralization of this symbology and the systematic contradiction of the imperial authority previously established through these codes. |
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| ISSN: | 1682-1106 |