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the Hong Kong Certificate of Identity, you must seek a visa almost every time you wish to travel. It does not have the same rights of travel as a full Portuguese passport will possess.
Nevertheless, one day after you have achieved residence in Portugal, you can obtain the alien passport in Lisbon if you currently hold a restricted travel document. There's one inesti mable advantage of a Portuguese alien passport over a Hong Kong Certificate of Identity: it is Portuguese, and therefore gives you the right to leave Hong Kong as a foreign national at any time, if only to travel to Portugal.
(By the way, if you decide to take up a Portuguese alien passport, you must surrender your Hong Kong Certificate of Identity upon your return to Hong Kong. You will also have to seek the "right to land" in Hong Kong from the Hong Kong immigra- tion department. In other words, Hong Kong will thereonafter treat you as a foriegner.)
Dependents
As noted, application by the head of a household for resi- dency in Portugal can also include a wife, all unmarried daughters, and sons under the age of 18. You cannot include other relatives--older sons, parents, cousins, &c--in your ini- tial application for residence.
However, once you have qualified for residence in Portugal, you may bring other relatives to live in Portugal provided you guarantee that they will not become wards of the state. They can also achieve Portuguese residency and later citizenship without the purchase of property--they can "ride on your back".
However, to bring such dependents into Portugal, you (or at least one member of your family) must be actually living in Portugal.
The disadvantages of Portugal
There are two major disadvantages of becoming a Portuguese national. I have already referred to one: the language test. The second one is a little more serious.
Any male born in Portugal (or its overseas territories) or born of Portugese citizens is liable for service in the armed forces (the principle of "jus solis" mentioned earlier). This does not apply to anyone who becomes a Portuguese citizen through the process I have described above.