Chinese analyst Zhou Zhiwei considers that the election of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will contribute to “significantly improve” ties between Brazil and China and put the foreign policy of the two countries in “tune”.
Zhou Zhiwei, director of the Center for Brazilian Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a think tank under the Chinese government, predicted more “warm” political relations after they “cooled” during the “ideologically” anti-China presidency of Jair Bolsonaro.
“After Lula takes office, based on his leftist identity and a friendly attitude towards China in the past, political relations will improve a lot,” he said.
The analyst highlighted “multilateralism”, “South-South cooperation” and “promoting the reform of the international governance system” as Lula’s diplomatic priorities that converge with Beijing’s objectives.
“These [goals] have a lot in common with China’s external vision,” he stressed. “China-Brazil cooperation is crucial to maintain a multipolar order and unite developing countries”.
Lula won Sunday’s elections by just over two million votes over far-right ruler Jair Bolsonaro.
During Lula’s first two terms, between 2003 and 2011, the commercial and political relationship between Brazil and China intensified, marked, in particular, by the constitution of the BRICS bloc of emerging economies, which also includes Russia, India and South Africa. .
Chinese leader Xi Jinping congratulated Lula on his victory in the presidential elections. The “long-standing friendship between China and Brazil is conducive to maintaining regional and world peace and stability and promoting common development and prosperity,” Xi said in a message sent to the president-elect.
The relationship between Beijing and Brasília cooled, however, during the term of Bolsonaro, who took power with the promise of reformulating Brazilian foreign policy, with a rapprochement with the United States, and calling into question decades of alliance with the emerging world. Former Brazilian Foreign Minister Ernesto Araújo, who has since been replaced, has even adopted hostile rhetoric towards China.
Lula’s government will, however, coincide with a Congress dominated by right-wing forces.
Zhou devalued the importance of the composition of the Congress for Brazil’s foreign policy, noting that the head of state and Itaramaty, the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, make the decision in Chinese diplomacy.
“From the point of view of the political decision-making mechanism, Congress has limited direct influence on foreign relations,” he noted.
The analyst also recalled that, despite the openly anti-China ideological position of some conservative political forces, “many right-wing groups in Brazil are the real beneficiaries of cooperation” between the two countries.
“For example, agricultural and livestock groups, represented by the Brazilian right-wing parties, obtain significant profits in economic and commercial exchanges between China and Brazil”, he stressed.
Since 2009, China has been Brazil’s main trading partner, with bilateral trade rising from US$9 billion in 2004 to US$135 billion in 2021. In recent years, China’s share of Brazil’s exports has surpassed the 30%, to the ride of the Asian country’s appetite for raw materials, especially soy and iron ore.
Between 2007 and 2020, China invested a total of US$66 billion in Brazil.
