Global Courant 2023-04-13 14:08:39
SHANGHAI — President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva promised on Thursday that “Brazil is back” during a state visit to China aimed at strengthening trade ties and winning support for his push for peace in Ukraine.
The left wing veteran, who arrived in Shanghai on Wednesday evening, is seeking to reposition Brazil as a major global player after four years of relative isolation under his predecessor Jair Bolsonaro.
“The days when Brazil was absent from important world decisions are in the past,” Mr Lula said at a ceremony to inaugurate his political ally Dilma Rousseff as president of the Brics’ New Development Bank (NDB).
“We are back on the international stage, after an unexplained absence.”
Lula will spend Thursday in Shanghai before heading to China’s capital Beijing to meet his counterpart Xi Jinping, with whom he is expected to discuss the war in Ukraine on Friday.
Both China and Brazil have positioned themselves as mediators in the conflict, despite Western concerns that they are too friendly with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Trade ties
The Shanghai leg of Mr Lula’s trip highlighted another important goal of the visit: deepening economic ties between the two countries.
China is Brazil’s largest export market, buying tens of billions of dollars worth of soybeans, beef and iron ore.
Ms. Rousseff, a former leader of Brazil, will lead NDB, the multilateral lender jointly founded by Brazil, China, Russia, India and South Africa, until 2025.
After her inauguration ceremony, Mr. Lula visited a research center of Chinese telecom giant Huawei.
Video posted on the Brazilian president’s official Twitter account showed Mr. Lula being greeted by musicians in traditional dress playing classical Chinese instruments.
Huawei’s chairman then guided him through an exhibition that showcased the company’s extensive presence in Brazil – a contrast to the United States, where companies are effectively barred from doing business with the company.
Mr Lula was also expected to meet with the head of BYD, China’s largest electronic car maker, who said in October it planned to set up a car factory in Bahia in northern Brazil after Ford Motors closed its factory there. had closed.
The company already makes electric buses and cars for the Latin American market in Brazil.
