THE AMERICAN PRESENCE IN MACAO : SOME CHINESE PERCEPTIONS OF THE U.S.美國在澳門：中國人對美國的印象
The article analyzes how the American presence in Macao was perceived by the Chinese, articulating material encounters (ships, currencies, technologies), commercial activities, and religious missions as vectors for the production of images about the United States. It argues that, although the United...
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| Published in: | Review of Culture |
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| Format: | Articles |
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Instituto Cultural de Macau
January 2009
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| Online Access: | https://www.icm.gov.mo/rc/viewer/pdfViewerParts/40029/3620 |
| Summary: | The article analyzes how the American presence in Macao was perceived by the Chinese, articulating material encounters (ships, currencies, technologies), commercial activities, and religious missions as vectors for the production of images about the United States. It argues that, although the United States emerged late as an imperial power and exerted less direct influence on Sino-Western relations than European powers, the mediation of Macao allowed the everyday experience of Chinese merchants and observers to incorporate recurrent references to maritime power, technological modernity, and American national symbols—particularly the "motto of liberty" stamped on coins. Methodologically, the text mobilizes a chronological chain of contacts, drawing on historiographical sources and documentary evidence indicated in the study (ship arrivals, circulation of dollars, settlement of residents and Protestant missionaries, and printing initiatives), in order to reconstruct shifts between the early period and the more recent one, marked by new economic dynamics following the transfer of sovereignty from Portugal to China. It concludes that the image of the United States in Macao evolved from a figure associated with instruments of Atlantic trade and circulation into an economic and cultural actor of growing impact, reconfiguring Macao's role in Sino-American relations. |
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| ISSN: | 1682-1106 |