The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics is a branch of the Ministry of Planning, Budget, and Management. On its own website it has a history timeline with a few curious dates:
catálogo ID: 4106
Código municipal: 4108809
Município: Guaíra
Estado: Paraná - PR
Gentílico: guairenseHistórico: Guaíra Paraná - PR
History
There is historical evidence of the discovery of America before Columbus by the inhabitants of the Pacific Islands, by Hindus, as well as by the Japanese and Koreans.
636 – Chinese discover America.
986 – The navigator Bjarni Herjolsson traveling from Iceland to Greenland was diverted from his route by a storm that led him south, taking him to new and unknown places. In 1001, back in Greenland, he told Leif Ericson, who years later followed with an expedition arriving in Helluland (land of rocks), Markland (land of wood) and Vinland (land of vines) in North America.
1117 – The Icelandic bishop Eirik made the same route and arrived at Vinland. In 1965, the Yale Library announced to the world the discovery of an ancient map where two islands appeared, one with the name Vinland and the other with the name Brazil. (The fact was discovered in 1960 by the Norwegian Helge Ingstad who found ruins of the old wikers in New Fonndland). This map is a precise document that records the circumnavigation trip made by Father John de Plano Carpini between 1245 and 1247.
1311 – The African king Abudakari II led a fleet of several boats from the African west coast towards the Atlantic Ocean, years later he returned only one boat reporting the discovery of America.
1339 – The name Brazil already appears in planisférios (cartographers Mediceu, Solleri, Pinelli and Branco). The Brazilian historian Sérgio Buarque de Holanda cites that the origin of the name Brazil is due to a Celtic legend that speaks of a "land of delights".
1474 – The most famous cartographer of the time, Paolo Toscanelli, wrote to a Portuguese friend in 1474, talking about the "Island of Antília".
1479 – Treaty of Alcáçovas - Portugal gives up the Canary Islands but now has rights over any discovery to the south of this archipelago.
1493 – The Order of Christ already knew the Isola de Braçill according to the map of 1482, made by the cartographer Gracioso Benincasa, in Ancona, Italy, the map indicates: the Portuguese coast, the African coast, the Brazilian coast and the Antílias. They maintained a policy of secrecy that condemned to death those who commented on the matter.
This is an extraordinary claim on an official government website.
There are of course numerous pre-Columbian contact hypothesis. Some with a bit more, some with a large degree of less confidence for what they present.
The very specific year 636 does also appear on Wikipedia Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact theories – Claims of Chinese contact.
In all probability this is far from most official narratives. And not well supported. Not even in conspiracy-theory-friendly corners of the net.
Usually such claims give dates to a few decades before Columbus and the more outlandish ones go back 40000 years.
But this specific theory, for which the Brazilian institute claims there would be "evidence", seems also absent entirely from what 'theories' I could locate elsewhere.
The page seems to give credit to authors "Omar Fedato Aleksiejuk; Zido Raddatz", but all searches so far for these claims return empty and for authors back to the same.
Which theories posit that "there were Chinese discoverers of the Americas in 636"? Or which "evidence" might this institute's chronology might allude to?