After several days off with pneumonia, Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva plans to travel to China on Sunday for a state visit focused on ramping up business with his top trading partner and aligning with Xi Jinping to promote peace plans in the war in Ukraine.
Lula was originally scheduled to travel to Beijing on Saturday, but “mild pneumonia” diagnosed on Thursday forced him to delay his departure by a day, the presidency said.
In power since January, the leader of the Workers’ Party has promised to “replace Brazil in the new global geopolitics” after the isolationism of his predecessor Jair Bolsonaro.
His official schedule begins on Tuesday when he will meet with President Xi Jinping.
With his Chinese counterpart, Lula will raise his proposal to create a group of countries mediators in the war in Ukrainewhich he launched in January by refusing to send munitions to Kiev because Brazil is a “peaceful” nation.
According to Brasilia, “China is an important ally” of this initiative.
The veteran leader wants to position Brazil as a facilitator of a multinational dialogue in Ukraine and thus emulate its mediation in the nuclear deals between Iran and the United States during his second term (2007-2010).
China’s proposal for Ukraine
China, for its part, is promoting a 12-point peace proposal, which Xi discussed this week in Moscow with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin and which includes a call for dialogue and respect for the territorial sovereignty of all countries.
Putin has expressed cautious support, while Western powers accuse Beijing of tacitly supporting Moscow’s armed intervention and the United States has called on the world not to “be fooled” by such plans.
Lula will arrive in the Chinese capital with a large entrepreneurial and ministerial entourage.
“Lula’s visit is a very clear signal that a high-level bilateral dialogue is needed,” Evandro Menezes de Carvalho, China expert at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, told AFP.
Bolsonaro visited China in his government (2019-2022), but the relationship cooled after the far-right leader allied with then-US President Donald Trump in blaming Beijing for the covid-19 pandemic 19.
Anyway bilateral trade continued to rise.
Millions of dollars in dance
Last year trade between the two countries exceeded 150,000 million dollars, even though Brazilian entrepreneurs continue to have difficulty placing goods with higher added value on the Chinese market.
Brazil wants to promote “trade, aiming at product diversification, but also bring Chinese investment and advance in other guidelines,” says Menezes, who cites the potential in technologies such as semiconductors, artificial intelligence or the resumption of projects for a bullet train between Brazil cities. .
With $70.3 billion between 2007 and 2020, Brazil is the main destination for Chinese investment in Latin America (48%), according to the Brazil-China Business Council.
The money is mostly put in energy and oil productionbut also in automobile and heavy machinery factories, mining, agribusiness and information technology.
Half a thousand entrepreneurs, half of whom are Brazilians, mainly from the agri-food sector, will hold a seminar on Wednesday 29.
This sector obtained on Thursday the suspension of the ban in force since February 23 on the export of meat to China, and which was fixed after an “atypical” case of the so-called “mad cow disease” was detected.
On the other hand, Brazil is a huge market for Chinese companies as a manufacturer of Huawei telecommunications equipment. And advances between the two countries to use the yuan in multibillion-dollar bilateral trade would pave the way for greater internationalization of the Chinese currency.
“More than with any other country,” a successful relationship with Brazil boosts China’s global economic goals, says Evan Ellis, an expert on China and Russia at the Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies in Washington.
“But we must not lose sight of the fact that there is also a strategic association that has to do with Brazil’s collaboration with China in a south-south oriented global projection,” he adds.
Lula prioritized multilateral diplomacy in his previous governments (2003-2010) and has visited Beijing three times. He dates back to 2006 the group of emerging economies BRICS, to which China, Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa belong.
On Tuesday, Lula will also meet with Prime Minister Li Qiang and the president of the People’s Assembly, Zhao Leji.
He will travel to Shanghai on Wednesday to coincide with the inauguration of his ally and former Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff (2011-2016), head of the BRICS development bank, the NDB.
He will conclude his international tour with a visit to the UAE from March 31st to April 1st.
Source: AFP
Source: Clarin
Mary Ortiz is a seasoned journalist with a passion for world events. As a writer for News Rebeat, she brings a fresh perspective to the latest global happenings and provides in-depth coverage that offers a deeper understanding of the world around us.