“It is a qualitative leap in bilateral terms at the level of world powers or countries of great European affirmation, and this is very significant,” he told journalists at the Great Wall of China at the beginning of a six-day visit to the country.

In his first words in China, De Sousa said that the Portuguese-Chinese relations are in an “excellent moment” and that there is a “qualitative leap that is taken, and that is being taken during this visit, going from a memorandum, which is already very important from the strategic partnership standpoint, now on a bilateral level to more than that.”

According to De Sousa, Portugal now has with China “a political relationship at the level of countries such as France, the United Kingdom and the United States of America, implying annual meetings between the prime minister of the two states.”

De Sousa began on Friday a six-day visit to China that ends in Macau, during which he is to be welcomed by China’s president, Xi Jinping.

De Sousa is to participate in the “One Belt, One Route” forum in Beijing, a Chinese investment initiative in infrastructures from Asia to Europe, in which he is to speak on Saturday.

Among the participants is also the secretary-general of the United Nations, António Guterres, and the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde.

The first point on Portugal’s president schedule in China was to go to a section of the Great Wall in the northern part of the capital, where he spoke to the press about the visit in a country he describes as an “important partner” that Portugal knows well, “for 500 years,” but sets it apart from the “allies.”

De Sousa, who taught law in Macau but never visited mainland China, said that the “allies are the Europeans, the United States of America” and the “Portuguese-language brothers” countries.

As for the Portuguese-Chinese economic relations, he said that “it is good for Portugal to balance foreign investment” and that there should be “two-way cooperation, not only one,” challenging the idea of a “Chinese invasion.”

During this visit, De Sousa is to have meetings with major Chinese companies investing in Portugal, with Portuguese exporters for the Chinese market and with high authorities of Shanghai and the Chinese Special Administrative Region – the two other points of his itinerary.

On Monday, he is to be welcomed by Xi Jinping with military honours at the Palácio do Povo and he is to have a meeting with China’s prime minister, Li Keqiang.

From the Portuguese government, the delegation includes the ministers of foreign affairs, Augusto Santos Silva, and of environment and energy transition, João Pedro Matos Fernandes, and the secretary of state for internationalisation, Eurico Brilhante Dias.

Portugal and the People’s Republic of China established diplomatic relations 40 years ago, in February 1979.