Explaining Brazil #228: Brazil and China’s twin crises

In the four years of Jair Bolsonaro’s presidency, Brazil’s relationship with China — its biggest trading partner — was lukewarm at best. Now, Mr. Bolsonaro’s successor Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has promised to “bring Brazil back” to the world. And that also means getting closer to Beijing.

As a matter of fact, the Lula government announced that his first international trips would be to Argentina, Uruguay, the U.S., Portugal, and China.

In this week’s episode, we’ll discuss what else we can expect from Brazil-China relations under the Lula government.

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In this episode:

• Aline Tedeschi holds a Ph.D. in international relations and is a professor at the Hunan Normal University. She is also a media manager at platform Shumian, the director of think tank Observa China, and a host member professor at BRICS TheCatalyst.

Background reading:

• For the better part of his presidential term, Jair Bolsonaro has created many rifts with China. From 2021 onwards, he became less adversarial toward Beijing, but the relationship never got close.
• Still, over 13 percent of Chinese capital invested in the world in 2021 went to Brazil — more than any other country.
• Brazil’s dependence on a limited portfolio of exports to China is risky – but a recent report explores how the e-commerce sector could provide opportunities for diversification.
• Listen back to episodes #57, How should Brazil deal with China?, and #198, China raises red flags in Brazil.
• U.S.-China tensions have led many sectors to think about nearshoring. But expectations that the region will attract massive investments as a result of a U.S.-China decoupling will likely turn out to be overly optimistic, columnist Oliver Stuenkel writes.
• One of the most flagrant differences between Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Jair Bolsonaro can be spotted in diplomacy. Within days, Brazil changed its previously pro-Israel stance and withdrew from an international anti-abortion coalition.

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