Brazil’s Lula welcomes Xi Jinping on state visit as ties between countries strengthen

RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Wednesday welcomed Chinese President Xi Jinping on a state visit to the Alvorada Palace in Brasilia, the latest sign of deepening ties between the two countries that analysts say could accelerate as they return Donald Trump to Brazil. White House in 2025.

In 2009, China overtook the United States as Brazil’s largest export market. Since then, trade and investment ties between the two countries have strengthened, and on Wednesday the two leaders signed 37 agreements in areas ranging from trade and tourism to agriculture, industry and science. and technology, healthcare, energy, culture and education.

Experts say this reflects a broader trend. Last week, Xi Jinping opened a $1.3 billion megaport in Peru, perhaps the clearest sign of Latin America’s reorientation.

“Latin America has always been forgotten by the United States and the European Union. Who fills this void? China,” said Flavia Loss, a professor of international relations at the Foundation School of Sociology and Politics in Sao Paulo.

“The election of Donald Trump is already accelerating this closeness. We clearly see this happening now, live,” she added.

The Chinese leader’s state visit comes more than a year after Lula visited China as he sought to strengthen ties and mend relations with its biggest trading partner after a rocky period under his predecessor Jair Bolsonaro.

Bolsonaro’s son, MP Eduardo, blamed the Covid-19 pandemic on the Chinese Communist Party and called giant Chinese technology company Huawei “Chinese espionage”, drawing sharp rebukes. For eight months of 2022, China did not have an ambassador in Brazil.

Lula took the opposite position. Repairing relations with China is also part of his strategy to replace Brazil on the international stage after a period of isolation under Bolsonaro, who showed little interest in global affairs.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Lula said China and Brazil’s joint actions “resonate throughout the world,” highlighting the two countries’ cooperation within the United Nations and the BRICS group of developing countries.

Xi Jinping called China and Brazil “reliable friends with a common destiny and positive forces that promote peace.”

According to a November 13 statement from Brazil’s presidential palace, trade between the countries amounted to $136.3 billion from January to October 2024.

“Since 2004, when President Lula first visited China, bilateral trade has grown more than 17-fold. Exports to China exceeded the sum of our sales to the United States and the European Union,” Eduardo Saboya, secretary for Asia and the Pacific at the Foreign Ministry, said in a statement.

China is pressuring Brazil to join the Belt and Road Initiative, BRI, which began as a program for Chinese companies to build transportation, energy and other infrastructure around the world.

Brazil was cautious at first but has considered the idea and is looking for partners in areas such as funds to limit man-made climate change and finance adaptation measures, said Pedro Braites, a China expert at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, a university and think tank in Sao Paulo.

“But Brazil, as this state visit shows, has managed to make good agreements with China without joining it, so I don’t know if that benefit is worth it in Brazil’s calculations,” he added.

While Trump’s return to the White House could speed up rapprochement between China and Brazil, too much commitment to Chinese leadership could cost the South American country dearly by putting it at odds with Washington and European countries, the British say.

“Brazil will continue to move closer and will bargain to a certain extent, but I think there will be a limit to that,” he added.

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Associated Press writer Didi Tan in Washington contributed.