The president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, assured Thursday that his country is “returned” to the international scene, at the beginning of a state trip to China in which he plans to speak about the war in Ukraine and million dollar trade deals for a variety of investments

The leader of the Workers’ Party, who arrived in Shanghai on Wednesday evening, will meet his counterpart Xi Jinping in Beijing on Friday to try to form a group of countries to mediate in the conflict that is ravaging Ukraine.

“The time when Brazil was absent from major world decisions is now a thing of the past. We are back on the international scene after an inexplicable absence,” he said in his first official act.

Lula attended the inauguration of the former Brazilian president in Shanghai on Thursday Dilma Rousseff (2011-2016) as BRICS bank presidentthe group of large emerging countries that brings together Brazil, China, India, Russia and South Africa.

Leading role on the world stage

Since his return to power on January 1, the leader of the centre-left wants to bring Brazil back “into the new world geopolitics” and leave behind the isolationism of his predecessor, the far-right Jair Bolsonaro.

Lula, who traveled to Argentina and Uruguay in January and to the United States in February, had planned to visit Brazil’s biggest trading partner from March 25 to 31 but had to postpone it due to pneumonia.

Finally, the Brazilian leader arrived in Shanghai accompanied by his wife Rosangela “Janja” da Silva and was received at the airport by the Chinese deputy foreign minister, Xie Feng.

“Brazil is back with the will to contribute once again to a more developed, more equitable and environmentally sustainable world,” he insisted during the event at the BRICS bank.

The president praised the role of this bank as a “tool to reduce inequalities between rich and emerging countries” and “with great potential for transformation” because it frees emerging countries from what he denounced as “subjugation to traditional financial institutions” .

Delegation of politicians and entrepreneurs

Lula leads a delegation that includes about 40 political representatives, including nine ministers, governors and state deputies, and a large group of businessmen.

It is the fourth official visit to China for Lula, who began his third term as president in January, after two from 2003 to 2010.

After his first visit in 2004, the volume of trade between the two economies grew 21 timesaccording to the presidential palace of Planalto.

In 2022, the Asian giant imported more than 89.7 billion dollars, mainly soybeans and minerals, and exported 60.7 billion, according to data from the Brazilian presidency.

Visit Huawei

The first day in Shanghai had a particularly economic component with a visit to a research center for Huawei, the US-sanctioned Chinese tech giant.

In a video posted on Twitter by the Brazilian presidency, a group of musicians dressed in traditional costumes can be seen greeting Lula, who visited an exhibition on Huawei’s presence in Brazil together with the president of the company.

Shortly thereafter, Lula tweeted that he had been given a presentation on 5G and advances in telehealth, education and connectivity, a “very strong investment in research and education,” he considered.

Huawei won a tender to supply the equipment implement 5G technology in Brazil in 2021, the same year, the United States placed the company on the list of Chinese companies that pose an “unacceptable risk” to its national security.

After this visit, the Brazilian president was expected to meet with the head of the largest electric car maker in China, the BYD conglomerate, which produces buses and electric cars in Brazil and plans to open an automobile plant in Bahia (north), after Ford Motors will close its own in that industrial area.

Plan for Ukraine

In the evening Lula was supposed to go to the Chinese capital, where on Friday he will meet Xi Jinping, with whom he should address the conflict in Ukraine.

The two countries have in common that they have not imposed sanctions on Russia, e hope to play a mediating role.

Last week, the Brazilian president said Ukraine “can’t want everything” and suggested it could cede territory on the Crimean peninsula, whose 2014 annexation by Moscow Kiev does not recognize.

The spokesman for Ukrainian diplomacy, Oleg Nikolenko, replied that there is no reason to “abandon a single centimeter of Ukrainian territory”, but thanked “the efforts of the Brazilian president to find a way to stop Russian aggression”.

Lula proposes forming a group of countries to work on a negotiated solution to the conflict caused by the Russian invasion. Upon his return from China, that group will be “created,” he promised.

Source: AFP