Portuguese society in China was a highly diverse, multi-racial, communal aggregation. Through inter-racial marriage, concubinage, conversion to Catholicism and the attraction of commercial and political advantage, non-European elements joined this grouping of Portuguese Crown administrators, country traders and missionaries. Although Macao's European population were acculturated to many of the local conditions in China, the fundamental characteristics of the economic, political and social organisation in which these country traders participated remained Portuguese.

No attempt has been made to view as a whole the activities of a Luso-Chinese community or to stress the individual racial or religious inter-mixtures that were present at Macao. The Portuguese community at Siam, for example, was largely mestiço, lived in the Portuguese quarter, and supported the largely Catholic missionaries that were part of the Portuguese Padroado; this community in the eyes of the Siamese and European observers was Portuguese. The conditions were similar in other Portuguese communities throughout the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean.

If we compare the casado's position within Portuguese colonial society at Goa and at Macao, we find a few major similarities and several sharp differences. The most important similarity was that of size; the total number of individuals was very small. Although there were methods by which many segments of colonial society, including indigenous merchants, religious and Crown administrators, were involved, the casados provided the bulk of the resources and the impetus for Portuguese participation in inter-Asian maritime trade.