China’s ambassador to Brazil, Zhu Qingqiao, said in an interview published on Wednesday that the Communist Party considers formally integrating Brazil into its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) a “fundamental measure” to cement bilateral ties.
The BRI is a global infrastructure program launched by the Chinese government in which it offers poor countries predatory loans that it then expects the countries to spend paying Chinese companies to build unaffordable infrastructure projects. China initially promoted the initiative as a way to reconstruct the Ancient Silk Road that once connected Beijing to western Europe, but has dramatically expanded the scope of the project in the last decade to regions that have no historical ties to the Ancient Silk Road, particularly in Africa and Latin America.
China is Brazil’s top trade partner and a critical economic collaborator, as well as a diplomatic partner and a fellow member of the BRICS anti-American political coalition. Brasilia, under both left- and right-wing presidential administrations, has expressed interest in joining the BRI but has never actually formalized a request to do so.
Zhu, the Chinese ambassador, told the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post that Beijing expects to pressure the Brazilian government into taking the major step and considers Brazil joining the BRI a “demonstration of stability” necessary to boost the relationship. Brazil and China, Zhu said, “should not be satisfied with the current status of cooperation.”
“We believe that the initiative is highly consistent with the Lula government’s development strategy, such as [its] re-industrialisation plans, South American integration routes and growth-acceleration project,” Zhu told the Morning Post, adding that being a BRI member would “facilitate the identification of synergies between Brazilian demand and China’s interests in the most strategic sectors.”
The Morning Post noted that Brazil, South America’s largest economy, stands alone with Colombia and Paraguay in not joining the BRI. In neighboring countries such as Peru and Argentina, BRI membership has allowed China to offer predatory loans that have eroded those nations’ sovereignties, leaving them open to Chinese geopolitical influence or the potential takeover of key ports and other transport hubs by Chinese companies.
While China has largely completed its BRI takeover of Latin America, the direst effects of the program have yet to be seen in that region. Among the countries most severely suffering as a result of joining the BRI are Sri Lanka, which has lost control of a critical seaport for nearly 200 years; Kenya, which has documented widespread incidents of racism perpetrated by imported Chinese businessmen against the local population; and heavily indebted Pakistan.
Chinese Communist Party officials have made no secret that ensnaring Brazil would be a major victory for the BRI. Chinese officials heavily pressured the administration of former President Jair Bolsonaro to contemplate joining, and the self-identified conservative reportedly considered it. Bolsonaro had campaigned on curbing nefarious Chinese influence in the Brazilian economy, but made a friendly visit to the country in 2019, falsely declaring it a “capitalist country” and declaring, “Brazil needs China, and China needs Brazil.”
In 2022, then-Brazilian Ambassador to China Paulo Estivallet de Mesquita said that Bolsonaro’s government had a “great interest” in joining the BRI.
“We view the Belt and Road Initiative with great interest,” the ambassador said at the time. “During President Bolsonaro’s visit to China in 2019, our leaders agreed to look for synergies between the BRI and Brazil’s investment program. We already have many investment projects that fit these criteria.”
Bolsonaro ultimately did not join the BRI and lost the presidency to current socialist leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Lula, who helped create the BRICS bloc during his first two terms as president, has enthusiastically embraced increased trade with China and signed a deal to eliminate the use of the U.S. dollar in bilateral trade with Beijing shortly after taking office again. In April 2023, Lula visited China, stopping in Shanghai and reportedly discussing BRI integration.
“The BRI is a completely open and transparent cooperation initiative,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told reporters during Lula’s visit. “We are willing to work with all members of the international community, to jointly promote cooperation for construction of the Belt and Road, and to pay our efforts to promote joint development for all countries.”
Lula did not sign any BRI agreement on that visit, even though he suggested that infrastructure projects were high on the agenda for collaboration with China.
“We want to build a partnership with the Chinese so that they can invest in things that don’t exist [yet] – a new highway, a new railroad, a new hydroelectric plant – investments that mean something new for Brazil,” Lula said in an interview at the time.
Infrastructure projects became the source of controversy in Brazil during the term of President Dilma Rousseff, Lula’s hand-picked successor, after a police investigation known as “Operation Car Wash” revealed that Rousseff, and potentially Lula, presided over a pervasive corruption scheme using government funding. The government allegedly signed overpriced contracts with building corporations, the most notorious of them the now-defunct Odebrecht, to complete infrastructure contracts. The company would then kick back the excess money to the politicians it needed to secure future deals, Brazilian police officials asserted.
Lula himself was imprisoned after multiple convictions on charges of using ill-gotten gains from the corruption scheme to purchase a luxury beachfront property. Brazil’s Supreme Court ultimately freed Lula on a technicality and its sister tribunal, the Supreme Electoral Court (TSE), banned the Bolsonaro campaign from discussing Lula’s criminal background in public.
Lula has continued to champion sprawling infrastructure projects during his current term as president, including the reported establishment of an “Amazon Silk Road” to be built with Chinese help. The Argentine news outlet Infobae revealed in May that the state government of Pará published a report in February announcing that a Chinese delegation had arrived to join the “Precursor Committee of the Maritime Silk Road in the Amazon.”
Brazil denied that it secretly joined the BRI or that the Pará committee had a direct link to the BRI.
Lula’s government ultimately announced in late July that it had finally begun planning a “proposal to join” the BRI, though it has yet to clarify any specifics.
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