Chinese Embrace Brazil as "Global Strategic Partner" as Brazilian President Visits China
by Lawrence A. Franklin • May 12, 2023 at 5:00 am
Chinese President Xi Jinping also apparently persuaded Lula to support the use of China's yuan to replace the dollar as the global standard currency.... China also might want Brazil to grant permission to purchase additional farmland. China already owns more than 200,000 hectares of Brazilian land.
The Brazilian leader's fifth visit to China on April 14 was a stark contrast to his cool visit to the US this past February.
Brazil's warming ties to China also have an economic purpose. China is Brazil's largest trading partner, and Brazil exports a great deal of agricultural produce to China. Brazil appears hopeful for increased Chinese investment to modernize its industrial plants as well as technology transfer for its semiconductor production.
Above all, Lula has praised China's rhetoric favoring the establishment of a new, non-US led international order based on multipolarity. China has acknowledged Lula's support by emphasizing Brazil's prominent role in the multinational "BRICS" alliance consisting of Brazil. Russia, India, China, and South Africa.
The Chinese triumph, however, may prove short-lived. Bolsonaro -- who condemned China as a "predator" and infuriated the CCP by visiting Taiwan in February 2018 when he was campaigning for the presidency -- remains popular and may run against Lula in Brazil's next presidential election.
The mid-April visit to China of newly inaugurated Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Lula) is an apparent triumph for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in its effort to broaden its influence in Latin America. The visit also seems to have served Lula's legacy dream of being perceived as a moral beacon and advocate for the impoverished "Global South."
Lula, now 76, is serving his third term as Brazil's president, after barely defeating the pro-US and conservative nationalist former President Jair Bolsonaro. Lula has long been an advocate of a socialist model of economic development. He once expressed his respect for the CCP, on an earlier visit to China, "for having created this grand miracle." According to Wang Yi , CCP Director of Foreign Affairs, Lula also expressed admiration for China's having brought millions out of poverty and hunger.
