*This article was written prior to the final round of the Brazilian election
In the last few years, Brazil, under the President Jair Bolsonaro has degenerated into a diplomatic isolation due to a bolshie, radical foreign policy of attacking China, pursuing an anti-environmental and “anti-globalist” approach and supporting Donald Trump’s voter-fraud theories. This affected Brazil's relations with the coming Biden administration and his ambitions to revitalize the Brazilian economy.
According to the World Bank's updated review, Brazil’s economic recovery including inflation and rising policy rates in 2022 faces significant downside risks over low labor force participation, fewer job opportunities and higher poverty. As fiscal sustainability poses a serious economic challenge, Brazil – set to hold the presidential runoff on October 30 –needs to strengthen ties with China, its most important trade partner since 2009.
Brazil, a key member of the regional economic bloc – the Southern Common Market known as Mercosur in Spanish or Mercosul in Portuguese – boasts a significant trade surplus with China. Several South American countries are Beijing's comprehensive strategic partners; Brasilia stands out from the rest for it became the first regional state to enter in a strategic partnership with Beijing in November 1993.
Much is debated about China’s policy of cooperation and engagement. But it’s a fact the Chinese approach has successfully moderated the brusqueness of some international leaders who seem to be less-friendly to the world’s second largest economy. Brazil’s Bolsonaro is one of such examples.
On his fiery campaign trail in 2018, the outspoken Brazilian leader criticized China for “buying” the country; still, Beijing defended Brasilia’s sovereignty very next year when Bolsonaro faced raging western criticism in wake of Amazon fires. The “grand gesture” buoyed up the Brazilian president to visit China and pronounce it an “ever greater part” of his nation’s future.
Despite scathing opposition on federal level and diplomatic isolation of the “Trump of the Tropics” in the West, China provided “fantastic” vaccines and medical supplies to the Brazilian states and helped Bolsonaro project himself internationally through the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) summits. This again drove him into taking a more pragmatic stance vis-à-vis Beijing.
As the presidential race between Bolsonaro and former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva draws near – the latter has a long history of being close to China. In his first official trip to China, Lula in 2004 would take along the largest caravan of businessmen ever present abroad to have a foothold in a market of 1.2 billion people and institutionalized the Brazil-China relationship.
During his presidency, China became Brazil’s top trading partner in 2009 and subsequently emerged as the world’s sixth-largest economy in 2011. His then-foreign minister Celso Amorim, who played a role in the BRICS formation and is now Lula’s foreign policy adviser, in January emphasized a “pragmatic” foreign policy regarding China and recently warned “isolation, sanctions, blockades (and) threats of force” were exacerbating the global peace and economic situation.
Even as more than half of the Brazilian networks were built by Huawei, the government caved in to the US pressure and shunted the Chinese telecom giant out of the competition for government sector. The Latin American country, however, allowed Huawei to continue providing service to its 242 million active mobile connections (more than Brazil’s population), leaving the window open for Huawei to enter the game in future.
As the two nations celebrate the 10th anniversary of the China-Brazil Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, bilateral trade between Beijing and Brasilia, according to the Brazilian government’s statistics, has swollen from $9 billion in 2004 to $135 billion in 2021. Brazil is also the top recipient of Chinese foreign investments in Latin America with an accumulated stock of $66 billion between 2007 and 2020.
Brazil seeks to expand and diversify trade and investment with China and Beijing is willing to boost cooperation across all sectors including in agriculture, low-carbon and clean-technology and digital economy. The stage may be set to bolster bilateral economic and strategic ties; further high-level engagements are the key to bridge differences and make fast progress on mutual interests.
As Lula follows the footsteps of Bolsonaro and accuses China of “occupying Brazil” – whether to mobilize electoral support or make Beijing a “scapegoat” of the country’s lack of competitiveness internationally – it appears as if, irrespective of whoever wins, will look at Beijing through the US perspective. Yet the cost may be too high. While this approach can put the Brazilian economy at a disadvantage, it leaves the country at the mercy of America and the West without any guarantee of ending its diplomatic isolation.
According to the World Bank's updated review, Brazil’s economic recovery including inflation and rising policy rates in 2022 faces significant downside risks over low labor force participation, fewer job opportunities and higher poverty. As fiscal sustainability poses a serious economic challenge, Brazil – set to hold the presidential runoff on October 30 –needs to strengthen ties with China, its most important trade partner since 2009.
Brazil, a key member of the regional economic bloc – the Southern Common Market known as Mercosur in Spanish or Mercosul in Portuguese – boasts a significant trade surplus with China. Several South American countries are Beijing's comprehensive strategic partners; Brasilia stands out from the rest for it became the first regional state to enter in a strategic partnership with Beijing in November 1993.
Much is debated about China’s policy of cooperation and engagement. But it’s a fact the Chinese approach has successfully moderated the brusqueness of some international leaders who seem to be less-friendly to the world’s second largest economy. Brazil’s Bolsonaro is one of such examples.
On his fiery campaign trail in 2018, the outspoken Brazilian leader criticized China for “buying” the country; still, Beijing defended Brasilia’s sovereignty very next year when Bolsonaro faced raging western criticism in wake of Amazon fires. The “grand gesture” buoyed up the Brazilian president to visit China and pronounce it an “ever greater part” of his nation’s future.
Despite scathing opposition on federal level and diplomatic isolation of the “Trump of the Tropics” in the West, China provided “fantastic” vaccines and medical supplies to the Brazilian states and helped Bolsonaro project himself internationally through the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) summits. This again drove him into taking a more pragmatic stance vis-à-vis Beijing.
As the presidential race between Bolsonaro and former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva draws near – the latter has a long history of being close to China. In his first official trip to China, Lula in 2004 would take along the largest caravan of businessmen ever present abroad to have a foothold in a market of 1.2 billion people and institutionalized the Brazil-China relationship.
During his presidency, China became Brazil’s top trading partner in 2009 and subsequently emerged as the world’s sixth-largest economy in 2011. His then-foreign minister Celso Amorim, who played a role in the BRICS formation and is now Lula’s foreign policy adviser, in January emphasized a “pragmatic” foreign policy regarding China and recently warned “isolation, sanctions, blockades (and) threats of force” were exacerbating the global peace and economic situation.
Even as more than half of the Brazilian networks were built by Huawei, the government caved in to the US pressure and shunted the Chinese telecom giant out of the competition for government sector. The Latin American country, however, allowed Huawei to continue providing service to its 242 million active mobile connections (more than Brazil’s population), leaving the window open for Huawei to enter the game in future.
As the two nations celebrate the 10th anniversary of the China-Brazil Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, bilateral trade between Beijing and Brasilia, according to the Brazilian government’s statistics, has swollen from $9 billion in 2004 to $135 billion in 2021. Brazil is also the top recipient of Chinese foreign investments in Latin America with an accumulated stock of $66 billion between 2007 and 2020.
Brazil seeks to expand and diversify trade and investment with China and Beijing is willing to boost cooperation across all sectors including in agriculture, low-carbon and clean-technology and digital economy. The stage may be set to bolster bilateral economic and strategic ties; further high-level engagements are the key to bridge differences and make fast progress on mutual interests.
As Lula follows the footsteps of Bolsonaro and accuses China of “occupying Brazil” – whether to mobilize electoral support or make Beijing a “scapegoat” of the country’s lack of competitiveness internationally – it appears as if, irrespective of whoever wins, will look at Beijing through the US perspective. Yet the cost may be too high. While this approach can put the Brazilian economy at a disadvantage, it leaves the country at the mercy of America and the West without any guarantee of ending its diplomatic isolation.