THEO VAN GOGH : Top of the Agenda – Brazil’s Lula Arrives in Beijing to Talk Business, War in Ukraine – COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS

  13-4-23
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, commonly known as Lula, is leading a delegation (AP) of businesspeople and local officials on a two-day state visit to China, during which Beijing and Brasília are expected to sign at least twenty bilateral trade and investment deals. Lula has said he will also urge Chinese President Xi Jinping to support the possibility of a peace deal in Ukraine. While China is Brazil’s biggest export market, relations between the countries became strained under the administration of Brazil’s last president, Jair Bolsonaro.

Meanwhile, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock is beginning her own trip (Reuters) to China today, with the aim of asserting a common European Union policy toward the country. French President Emmanuel Macron’s recent comments on resisting automatic alignment with U.S. policy on China prompted criticism and signaled divisions in the bloc’s own approach.
Analysis
“While geopolitics plays some role, Lula’s big bet on China is mostly about domestic politics & economic considerations. Normalizing and strengthening ties to Beijing is a unique opportunity for Brazil’s leftist president to build a rapport with pro-Bolsonaro agribusiness CEOs,” the Getulio Vargas Foundation’s Oliver Stuenkel tweets.

“Brazilian policymakers have long insisted on the virtue of a multipolar world order, but that insistence will be tested by the inescapable competition between China and the United States, the world’s two greatest powers. Lula must chart a course between these two countries, which are both essential partners for Brazil,” Harvard University’s Hussein Kalout and the University of São Paulo’s Feliciano Guimarães write for Foreign Affairs.