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Author: Fausto Godoy

Doctor of Public International Law in Paris. He entered the diplomatic career in 1976, served in Brussels embassies, Buenos Aires, New Delhi, Washington, Beijing, Tokyo, Islamabade (where he was Ambassador of Brazil, in 2004). He also completed transitional missions in Vietnam and Taiwan. Lived 15 years in Asia, where he guided his career, considering that the continent would be the most important of the century 21 - forecast that, now, sees closer and closer to reality.
the saga of india (Article 3) – the neighborhood with pakistan
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Asia, India, Pakistan

the saga of india (Article 3) – the neighborhood with pakistan

Continuing the exercise of looking at India, I think it is important now to briefly recap its policy towards the immediate neighborhood and the guidelines that guided – and still guide – its relations with Pakistan.  If we look at the map of the country we will see that the Indian subcontinent is a territory closed in on itself.: at North, the Himalayan mountain range constitutes a natural barrier, and to the south, the Arabian Sea, the Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal act as maritime borders. This has greater importance than merely cartographic, because it defines the unique character of Indian civilization.  Although isolated by geography, India suffered the influence of people who entered its territory over the millennia and came to join the ancestral Dravidian population. ...
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the saga of india (Article 2) – Politics and Religion
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Asia, India

the saga of india (Article 2) – Politics and Religion

Continuing my account of India's emergence as a great power, I would now like to deal with the political legacy of Rajiv Gandhi and the (of)paths taken by the “Indian National Congress” that would lead the “Bharatya Janata Party”/BJP to power. To recap...with the death of Rajiv Gandhi, in 1991, the “dynastic” Nehru/Gandhi line in the country’s leadership was interrupted. His two children, Rahul and Priyanka, they were teenagers; therefore, there were still no conditions for the “Indian National Congress” to leverage them into political positions. It remained, however, Rajiv's Italian wife, Sonia, who suffered, So, rejection by party “patrons”, for being a woman and a foreigner. Born in a village near Vicenza, in the Italian region of Veneto, She had met Rajiv when they were both...
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the saga of india (Article 1)
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Asia, India

the saga of india (Article 1)

THE STORY... The recent visit of the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, to the United States, crowned the image of greater power, that currently only the United States and China enjoy in international public opinion. Modi was received with honors granted by Americans only to the greatest world leaders. He was given the treatment of Head of State, although he is head of government. As reported by “The Economist”, “...Modi became one of the few foreign leaders, together with Winston Churchill, Nelson Mandela and Volodmir Zelenski to attend a joint session of Congress more than once.”. Also according to the English newspaper “...the global influence of the South Asian giant is increasing rapidly. Its economy is the fifth largest on the planet. Your diaspora of ...
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and vietnam, hein?
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Asia, Vietnam

and vietnam, hein?

Photo of Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum I have read little about Vietnam in our media. I chose to deal with it when I read this month’s “The Diplomat” article, intitulado “Remembering Vietnam´s Great Famine”, by French-Vietnamese analyst Christelle Nguyen. Contextualizing, The Investment Bank “Goldman Sachs”, the same as in a study of 2001 of its then chief economist, Jim O´Neil, intitulado “Building Better Global Economic BRICs”, formulated the concept of emerging economies that would succeed advanced ones in the leading role of globalization, launched, in 2005, the concept of “Next Eleven”, the set of eleven countries with the potential to appear together with the BRICS among the largest economies in this century. The criteria adopted were factors such as stability...
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Japan and India: an indispensable partnership?
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Asia, India, Japan

Japan and India: an indispensable partnership?

ITP no day 20 March, the Prime Minister of Japan, Fumio Kisihida, made an official visit to India. In New Delhi he gave a speech at the influential “Indian Council for World Affairs”, titled “The Future of the Indo-Pacific – Japan’s New Plan for a Free and Open Indo-Pacific” together with India: an Indispensable Partner”. That's when he announced a comprehensive plan for the region titled "Free and Open Indo-Pacific" /FOIP. He recalled that this project, which aims to politically and economically interconnect the Pacific and Indian Oceans, had been proposed by him, in 2015, before the same audience, following the vision of then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was Minister of Foreign Affairs. the review sought to stimulate clean energy for industries and transport, Japan and India should jointly lead the region, e ...
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Lula, hindering the respect for otherness so necessary for the coexistence between nations, Ukraine and NATO
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Americas, Brazil, Europe, Russia, Ukraine

Lula, hindering the respect for otherness so necessary for the coexistence between nations, Ukraine and NATO

© Ricardo Stuckert/PR Radicalizing the controversy... Sorry...this text is long and controversial...I reflected a lot until I decided to write about President Lula's statements regarding the war in Ukraine. Firstly, because I committed to speaking only about Asia, which is "my beach"... "Secondly", because I know that I am “poking the ox with a short stick”... But my conscience leads me to try to analyze as free as possible from any “ideological” bias (?) the statements that Lula has made on the subject. The vast majority of “well-thinking” individuals agree that what is happening in that region is an unspeakable tragedy...I think so too...But, for most of them, President Lula’s statement that “Ukraine is also responsible for...
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Hot weather in the South China Sea
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Asia, China

Hot weather in the South China Sea

The international press reported the expansion, from yesterday, 11/04, US Armed Forces Exercises in the Philippines. According to Estadão, these would be “the largest war maneuvers in the history of the Indo-Pacific region”, gathering more than 17 thousand soldiers, and military observers from Japan and Australia off the Spratly Islands, in the South China Sea. The objective would be to monitor the clashes that are being sharpened there, especially in view of the alleged Chinese invasion in the region.. The good relationship of the current Philippine President, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. - son of Ferdinand Marcos who dominated Philippine political life throughout the second half of the 20th century - with the americans, provided the initiative. Only... these islands are, together with the Parac Islands...
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India at the crossroads
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Asia, India

India at the crossroads

The recent article by Estadão “China, India and the New World Order”, sets the tone for these reflections of mine: the call states that “the competition between a powerful China, but in population decline and an India on the rise but with serious delays to overcome, impact the economic and geopolitical order.”. thought provoking, sim, but obvious?...It is comforting to have lived a long time to be able to calmly reflect on the impermanence and transience of world power.. When I was born, in June 1945, the planetary “hegemon” was... Great Britain (“the sun never sets on the British Empire”, even in Africa?)! But at that very moment Europe, torn apart by World War II, reluctantly began the deconstruction of the colonial empire that had made its fortune throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. First...
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Japan: excuse me, the robot will pass...
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Asia, Japan

Japan: excuse me, the robot will pass...

Photo: private collection Fausto Godoy O Estadão recently published an article entitled “Japan invests in “nice” robots to make deliveries”, referring to a traffic law that comes into force in April of this year authorizing the circulation of autonomous “delivery” robots,. Its creators, the robotics company ZMP, are confident that they will help, for example, in the provision of services to the elderly, especially in sparsely populated rural areas. They warn that they will be monitored by remote control and by people who can intervene if necessary. The ZMP considered it important that they be “humble and charming, to inspire confidence”.. The company has already gone out into the field and partnered with business giants, como a “Japan Post Holdings”, who will test these robots in Tokyo....
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China's Dilemma
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Asia, China

China's Dilemma

The population of the People's Republic of China has decreased by 2022 for 1,411 billion, a fall of about 850.000 people compared to the previous year, announced the “China National Bureau of Statistics”/NBS during a briefing on the last day 19/01. The last time something like this happened was in the 1960s., when Mao Zedong's disastrous policy of imposing forced industrialization on the country through the "Great Leap Forward/Forward" policy, between 1958 and 1960, with the intention of transforming the People's Republic into a developed and socially egalitarian nation in record time, through forced land reform and urban industrialization, mainly in the steel industry, had the disastrous consequence of death ...
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