“Nobody will forbid Brazil to improve its relations with China”. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, bringing the colors to Beijing green-gold of his Brazil near the chest, embroidered on the tie, has launched a little veiled message to Washington. To maximize Brazil’s strategic autonomy and defend the national interest, the PT leader uses multipolarity and compartmentalizes relations with Washington and Beijing. Thus a realistic Lula plays between the two blocks trying to obtain resources and narratives to solve domestic problems. The risks are many, and pass through the conflict in Ukraine.
Lula in China
Starting from the logistics organization, Lula’s visit to China it was bound to irritate the United States. Lula landed on April 13 at the head of a delegation of ministers, politicians and entrepreneurs; a stark contrast to theencounter had with Biden in February.
The delegation ha visited a headquarters of Huawei, a company subject to US sanctions. During the bilateral with Xi Jinping, Lula has signed 35 between memorandum of agreement on areas crucial to the Brazilian government’s domestic challenges. In particular, common efforts and resources will strengthen technological and industrial innovations, social problems, including hunger and poverty, and the agribusiness sectorimportant for exports but also an electoral interest group.
Key sectors for the Biden administration in Latin America also stand out: in addition to increasing l’energia green brazilian, china and brazil stand negotiating a climate investment fund. Furthermore, the two countries have increased cooperation in the Brazilian semiconductor industry, central theme of the tensions between Washington and Beijing. Also, the agreements have they assure to Brasilia’s coffers tens of billions of dollars of Chinese investments in the Brazilian economy. Overall, the visit erased Beijing’s years of cold relations with Bolsonaro, restoring relations between Brazil and its primo commercial and financial partner at the level of strategic partnership of Lula’s first term (2003-2010).
Finally, after having asked Ukraine to cede Crimea to Russia, Lula also discussed the war with Xibringing him his proposal to create a group of ‘non-aligned’ countries to broker peace. “Each side wants to win and many times a war doesn’t need a winner,” he said explained Lula, asking to the United States and the EU to stop “incentivising” conflict, and instead talk about peace.
Relations with Asia and the war in Ukraine
The meeting between the presidents of the leading economies of Asia and Latin America was the culmination of a busy period of travel, bilateral talks and the signing of agreements between the Lula administration and the leaders of the major Asian powers. On the way to the Forbidden City, the Brazilian president attended the ceremony on April 13 settlement of Dilma Rousseffhis heir in 2011, as president of the New BRICS Development Bank. At that meeting of the group that also brings together Russia, India China and South Africa, Lula has shouted to the injustice behind the dominance of the dollar as the reference currency of the international monetary system, by launching a proposal alternative currency of the BRICS. A speech not well seen in Washington, especially in the context of the recent creation of a clearinghouse between Brazil and China for trade and commerce in Yuan.
Between late April and early May, Lula then sent his former foreign minister and now chief adviser Celso Amorim first in Moscow, where he was received by Putin himself, and then in Ukraine. After meeting with Putin, Amorim has declared that there is no “magic solution” to stop the conflict. After days of controversy over Lula’s Chinese words, they have also arrived from Kyiv signals of détente and opening to a role of mediation by Brazil. With Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Lula had discussed on video call, explaining his initiative for the peace group. But on his return from China, his Russian counterpart was waiting for Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira in Brasilia Sergei Lavrovthat has thanked the Brazilians for their “clear understanding of the genesis of the situation in Ukraine”. Lavrov has added that a solution to the conflict can only be based on “multipolarity”, and not by the West wanting to dominate the international arena.
The risks of Lula’s foreign policy
The foreign policy of the first hundred days of Lula’s government did not disregard the expectationswith Brazil as Latin American ambassador of the position of ‘active non-alignment’ between China and the United States. If the themes, signatures and declarations that emerged from this visit to Beijing reconfirm this trend, however, they involve greater risk-taking on Lula’s part. The interests of Brazil continue to depend on its internal social and environmental challenges, including poverty and the preservation of the Amazon.
The war in Ukraine remains a problem for Brasilia, which imports fertilizer from sanctioned Russia to then export agricultural products and minerals to China. The United States remains the number one source of foreign investment in the country, Biden and Lula share founding values, including respect for democracy and human rights, which China and Russia do not share. To carry forward its demands, Brazil is not aiming solely at the rebirth of the BRICS as it did twenty years ago. Aware that the challenges are different, Lula tries to bring Brazil “at the center” of a multipolar worldsupplanting the dollar and involving countries like Congo and Indonesia in thematic but global issues like the environment. A multipolar governance supported by the narratives of China and Russia on anti-Americanism and the Global South.
Getting the most out of these two sides means for Lula one compartmentalization relations with China and the United States. All justified with the narrative of non-alignment: in this sense, Brazil’s position in Ukraine reflects that between Washington and the Moscow-Beijing axis. This long-term policy carries enormous risks for Brazil. The most obvious is the possibility that from the States they get fed up with Lula’s role-playing game. China is offering Lula what the United States has not yet wanted to give, from investments in semiconductors to the fund for the Amazon. But fare business with the BRICS and Beijing in sectors critical to US interests may not serve Lula’s domestic challenges, especially as a new isolationist or anti-Chinese hawk could take office in the White House in 2024. In the meantime, the closer Lula gets to Beijing on the war and favors trade in agricultural products and minerals over safeguarding the Amazon, the more betrays his campaign promises, e public opinion runs the risk of abandoning it.
Cover photo EPA/KEN ISHII / POOL