Lula's China visit to refresh Brazil ties with pragmatic approach
By Anthony Boadle and Lisandra Paraguassu
BRASILIA, March 23 (Reuters) -Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva heads to China this weekend for a five-day visit to refresh relations with his country's largest export market and seek new Chinese investment in the Latin American country.
Lula will meet with Xi Jinping on March 28 in Beijing, the first foreign leader to visit the Chinese leader since he secured a precedent-breaking third term as president.
The trip to China comes less than two months after Lula met with U.S. President Joe Biden at the White House, as Brasilia aims for a pragmatic foreign policy balancing ties with its top trading partners despite growing tensions between the two.
"Brazil has to keep a flexible and pragmatic position in this dispute between China and the United States," said Senator Hamilton Mourao, who as Brazilian vice president met with Xi in Beijing in 2019. That made him a key conciliatory voice on China in the government of former President Jair Bolsonaro, whose ideological base cheered his diplomatic spats with Beijing.
Lula is traveling with a large delegation that includes a half dozen cabinet ministers, plus governors, lawmakers and 240 business leaders, over a third from Brazil's farm sector, which sends the lion's share of its beef, soybeans and wood pulp to China. Lula will also visit Shanghai later in the week.
Foreign Ministry officials said Brazil wants to diversify its trade with China beyond iron ore, soy, oil and meat exports, with preparations to sign agreements on technology, innovation and sustainable development.
In an early positive sign, China resumed on Thursday imports of Brazilian beef that had been suspended for a month after an atypical case of mad cow disease was diagnosed in Brazil.
CHINESE INVESTMENT
Lula drew Brazil closer to China and traveled twice to Beijing during his two presidential terms from 2003 to 2010.
This visit comes after a period of rocky relations under Bolsonaro, who campaigned for office using anti-China rhetoric that continued into his first years in government, when his lawmaker son blamed China for the COVID-19 pandemic.
A senior government official told Reuters many people, including former Vice President Mourao and members of the Agriculture Ministry at the time, "tried to avoid disaster" and stop things from spiraling into an ideological war."
Trade relations were not affected by the diplomatic storm, though Chinese investment stalled, due in part to the pandemic preventing China's executives from visiting Brazil. Trade experts said Chinese investors did not feel welcome under Bolsonaro.
Marcos Caramuru, a former Brazilian ambassador in Beijing, previously told Reuters his country at first benefited from the U.S. trade war with China under former U.S. President Donald Trump, but he lamented that Chinese investment in Brazil lost steam for a few years.
By 2021, investment by Chinese companies in Brazil recovered to the level of 2017, according to the China-Brazil Business Council, which forecasts steady growth in coming years.
Beijing has kept open relations with Brasilia whatever the political color of the government in power, but China prefers to invest when local authorities are more friendly, Caramuru said.
China overtook the United States as Brazil's top trading partner in 2009 and Brazil is the today the largest recipient of Chinese investment in Latin America, driven by spending on high tension electricity transmission lines and oil extraction.
During the Bolsonaro presidency, many Chinese companies paused plans with the federal government and instead pushed ahead on business with state governments, especially in the less affluent northeast where Lula's Workers Party is strongest.
New Chinese projects include Latin America's largest bridge in Salvador, Bahia and, more recently, plans to build electric vehicles at a former Ford industrial complex there, potentially mining lithium nearby and producing batteries for export.
Reporting by Anthony Boadle and Lisandra Paraguassu
Editing by Brad Haynes and Aurora Ellis
Dernières actualités
Avertissement : Les entités de XM Group proposent à notre plateforme de trading en ligne un service d'exécution uniquement, autorisant une personne à consulter et/ou à utiliser le contenu disponible sur ou via le site internet, qui n'a pas pour but de modifier ou d'élargir cette situation. De tels accès et utilisation sont toujours soumis aux : (i) Conditions générales ; (ii) Avertissements sur les risques et (iii) Avertissement complet. Un tel contenu n'est par conséquent fourni que pour information générale. En particulier, sachez que les contenus de notre plateforme de trading en ligne ne sont ni une sollicitation ni une offre de participation à toute transaction sur les marchés financiers. Le trading sur les marchés financiers implique un niveau significatif de risques pour votre capital.
Tout le matériel publié dans notre Centre de trading en ligne est destiné à des fins de formation / d'information uniquement et ne contient pas – et ne doit pas être considéré comme contenant – des conseils et recommandations en matière de finance, de fiscalité des investissements ou de trading, ou un enregistrement de nos prix de trading ou une offre, une sollicitation, une transaction à propos de tout instrument financier ou bien des promotions financières non sollicitées à votre égard.
Tout contenu tiers, de même que le contenu préparé par XM, tels que les opinions, actualités, études, analyses, prix, autres informations ou liens vers des sites tiers contenus sur ce site internet sont fournis "tels quels", comme commentaires généraux sur le marché et ne constituent pas des conseils en investissement. Dans la mesure où tout contenu est considéré comme de la recherche en investissement, vous devez noter et accepter que le contenu n'a pas été conçu ni préparé conformément aux exigences légales visant à promouvoir l'indépendance de la recherche en investissement et, en tant que tel, il serait considéré comme une communication marketing selon les lois et réglementations applicables. Veuillez vous assurer que vous avez lu et compris notre Avis sur la recherche en investissement non indépendante et notre avertissement sur les risques concernant les informations susdites, qui peuvent consultés ici.
