Brazilian government “working on joining” Chinese Belt and Road

By Yunus Soner

Productive and promising negotiations are underway for Brazil, the South American giant, to join the Chinese Belt and Road Project, told us Monica Valente in Mexico City. For Brazil, this is not just a commercial integration but a step within a new leap of national industrialization, she said.

Valente is member of the Workers’ Party’s National Directorate. Her party is the main, but not only only force in the coalition that supports President Lula. This explains according to Valente a question mark that has risen, when after Venezuela’s presidential elections of July 28, Lula refused to recognize Maduro’s victory until the official electoral tallies were published.

How are the negotiations with China advancing regarding the Belt and Road Project?

On April 24, we made a large delegation from the Brazilian Workers’ Party (PT) coordinated by our president Gleisi Hoffman. We were in China with many meetings with the International Department of the Chinese Communist Party because the PT and the Communist Party of China have had a cooperation protocol for many years, 40 years of relations between the two parties. We went there, at their invitation, and as we returned to the government in 2023, we discussed the political issue, the issue of our two countries, where there is a very strong, very large trade in products.

Brazilians, especially in agribusiness, exported to China. Our biggest commercial partner for Brazil is China, and our Chinese partners were already discussing Brazil’s accession to the New Silk Road, inviting us. And we started a discussion in which we said, look, for Brazil we have an excellent political and commercial relationship with China. And for Brazil it is important to integrate into political, geopolitical, and multilateral processes.

The Silk Road seems to be a very powerful economic project. We are interested in discussing the issue. We have informed our President Lula, the diplomatic areas about it, and a discussion has begun between the two governments. It is true that for Brazil, the issue is not only about accession, for Brazil it is important that it is an integration.

Because we already have trade, we have a significant part of the Brazilian agribusiness sector, which already exports to China, but we do want to develop economic cooperation and the Silk Road can be a path in terms of our national proposal for neo-industrialization, with the 4G industry, infrastructure issues as well that help us in that, in short, an integration. For Brazil, it is important that it be in light of our national development project.

And that’s what we’re doing. The technical, diplomatic, and economic areas are working, and at the end of the year, President Xi Jinping is going to visit Brazil for the G-20 meeting. We hope that by this date we can have progress in this regard.

Do you expect an announcement at the G-20 meeting?

No, President Xi Jinping is going to go to the G-20 meeting, of the 20 largest economies. Since he’s already going to be in Brazil, we hope that he’ll hold a bilateral meeting between our two countries and presidents that we can move forward on this path of this integration.

And how do you see the chance that the Brazilian government will decide to join the Belt and Road?

Well, in these months there are many meetings and negotiations taking place, because Brazil is a large economy and we have our own infrastructure projects and our growth acceleration plan. The Chinese are interested in participating in that, but we want something more in terms of technology transfer, of what the Chinese call a win-win cooperation.

They are on the same path as us, which is to develop our countries to serve our people, but always in light of our current challenges, a new leap of industrialization: With energy transition, with the environmental profession.

This is super important for Brazil and that is where we are. And China has a very strong technological development in these energy sectors, in the 4G industry, a lot of investment in that, and we are also in this process in Brazil.

Is there any serious opposition against this negotiation process and even any attempt to sabotage it?

Look, what I saw about two months ago was General Laura Richardson, the commander of the Southern Command of the US Armed Forces in the South Atlantic expressed her opinion, without having been asked, that she did not think it was a good idea for Brazil to be on the Silk Road. That was a statement that no one asked for, and neither did we.

One thing that is very important that I would like to add is that since President Lula returned to the presidency of the republic, he has done a job of getting our country back on the international stage because we were totally isolated for four years by the force of the previous government that did not have this perspective. And President Lula makes a great effort to relate with all the countries, the regional blocks.

Also, for example, President Lula last week made a statement, after having had a meeting with Ursula von der Leyen, the head of the European Union. We had very good discussions about the Mercosur-European Union agreement. Our regional bloc Mercosur has made proposals to change the scope of the Mercosur-European Union agreement a little. And President Lula this week also made a very important statement, which we hope will happen, and that the conditions are also in place for the Mercosur-EU agreement to be signed.

That has been in discussion for 20 years. So, one of the hallmarks of President Lula’s government is that Brazil returns to the international stage, be it commercially with the agreements, this Mercosur-EU agreement, but also new initiatives such as the new Silk Road.

Another positioning of the Brazilian government occurred in regard to the presidential elections in Venezuela.

Well, Venezuela is in another chapter I would say. But it is also a chapter as part of international leadership. Without a doubt. Last year President Lula received President Maduro in Brazil at the meeting of the presidents of South America. We had a very good meeting that produced the Brasilia Consensus, which is a document that involves all the countries of South America in many joint initiatives for infrastructure projects, Latin American and Caribbean integration.

And Venezuela is also part of this. It is true that there are some difficulties in the political scenario, but we will overcome them. Things are resolved through dialogue, negotiation and diplomacy in light of what is most important for our people. We as a region believe that it is essential that we are integrated as Latin America and the Caribbean.

The whole world, countries, nations, are grouping together in blocks to be able to insert themselves into the global scenario, also economically, in a more sovereign and non-subordinate way. That is why Latin American and Caribbean regional integration is one of the great priorities of President Lula’s government.

The position of the governments of the region in Latin America, South America, after the presidential elections in Venezuela, also reflects the two approaches: of Latin American integration versus Latin American disintegration, where we see that the governments that are more against integration like Argentina but also the Venezuelan opposition that somewhat rejects that idea. Should Brazil, as a country that assumes leadership in Latin American integration, not politically, apart from the electoral processes and the tallies, support President Maduro? Politically at the end of the day, can we bet that the Venezuelan government, which was historically also a promoter of integration, will continue?

Yes, but look, that is what we work on in the political parties, but if you look at the Brazilian government, the Colombian government, they are governments of broader political coalitions than the left, which was even necessary because we were in Brazil with a very strong threat against democracy with Bolsonaro and also in Colombia the so-called historical pact and a broad alliance were necessary to defeat the extreme right, that has governed Colombia since many years and is responsible for the war for 50 years.

So there are also these contradictions in our countries. We do not have a majority in the legislative houses. Neither in Brazil does the government have it, nor in Colombia. So these are factors that also influence the taking of diplomatic and political decisions.

But our parties are very involved in overcoming these difficulties and finding ways of dialogue, of negotiation, to overcome these problems and help our governments to continue on the path of Latin American and Caribbean regional integration because that is not just a proposal of the left. That is a proposal of all those who defend development projects with justice.

Argentina, according to my perspective, is a project of subordination to the large transnational funds of the United States. For example, as was the case with Bolsonaro in Brazil, which was tragic, a tragedy for the Brazilian people. So, but all governments are interested in the issue of integration. Look, at the Brasilia meeting, from which the Brasilia Consensus emerged, May 2023, all the governments were there, even those of Uruguay, Guillermo Lasso from Ecuador, Boric from Chile, Venezuela, Colombia and all the other parties.

Argentina was there, because the Argentine elections were later, but afterward, at the end of 23 the new government moved away. But this document, the Brasilia Consensus, is in progress. Those agreements are in process, they are coming together little by little.