Maintaining balance in relations with the, AEA is perhaps the main challenge of Brazilian foreign policy.
For a long time, the country has reached maturity in its relations with the great power of the North and the nations of the eurozone. Escaping automatic political realignment, maturity expresses itself in the low degree of conflict; in the pragmatic discussion of divergences; in cooperation where possible; in distancing when necessary; In autonomy always. The official relationship, managed on a daily basis by career diplomats, is independent of the line of shift governments. (Except for a short period in which the command of the assaulted by the delirious pocket of Minister Ernesto de Araujo).
It should be evaluated in this light the construction of mature relationships with China, than the recent visit of President Lula – and huge entourage – is an episode.
It was a trip more than timely. When world trade disorganizes the threat of exorbitant tariffs, Brazil has proved to be many opportunities to explore with the Asian giant, its main commercial partner. Dali left with promises of investments from local companies of around R $ 27 billion in auto production, renewable energy, transportation and delivery, pharmaceutical inputs and even drinks. As if little were, the Central Bank explores the possibility of Brazilian companies raising funds through the launch of titles in Yuan, the Chinese currency.
But it should be remembered that the relationships between Brasilia and Beijing, although they have gained the commercial plan in the past few decades, do not constitute a dialogue between equals. As noted by UFRJ Professor Maurício Santoro, in the book “Brazil-China Relations in the 21st Century” published in England, and deserving translation into Portuguese, under the rhetoric of South-South cooperation, trade between the two countries resembles the standard of traditional South-North Dependence: we sell commodities and imported manufactured.
Moreover, the difference in political regimes, nonexistent in the relationship with the United States and the European Union, suggests additional caution in dealing with authoritarian China.
The idea of the “global south”, if it has had a use in the past, today more hinders than it helps the definition of a realistic foreign policy in Brazil towards China. From this are proof of certain statements by President Lula and some official videos about the trip posted on his official Instagram. The First Lady slip in dialogue with Xi Jin Ping seems to come from the same lack of clarity as the boundaries of sino-Brazilian cooperation.
In the remote year 1946, Deputy Octavio Mangabeira of the conservative UDN (National Democratic Union) knelt and kissed the hand of General Dwight Eisenhower, commander of allied forces in World War II and future holder of the White House. With the gesture, he entered history as an example of the subservience of the anti-guneist opposition to the so-called “Great North Brother.” Almost 80 years later, he badly takes a leftist president, by ingenuity or error of calculation, acting similarly to the powerful of the time.
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