The present article analyses the Brazilian approach to the Asian countries, specially, to China, in a historical perspective. At the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th, the relationship with that continent was sparse and restricted basically to the coming of Japanese workers and to the non-official migration of Chinese. During the Cold War, under the Brazilian attempt to diversify its partnerships, there was a political approach to China on the multilateral sphere, nevertheless the economic ties stayed with Japan. Despite the traditional discourse of the Brazilian diplomacy about the universalization of the country's international relations, just at the 1990's there was in fact a strengthening of the economic approach to China and not only political. The main reasons were the Chinese high economic growth and the trade battle that was raised by the proposal for the creation of a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), which is understood as an obstacle to the insertion of external actors.
Brazilian foreign policy; Brazil-Asia relations; Brazil-China relations
