BY OLIVER STUENKEL | NOVEMBER 12, 2019
Xi Jinping’s visit to Brasília caps a highly successful effort of damage control.
https://www.americasquarterly.org/content/spite-bolsonaro-china-quietly-deepens-its-influence-brazil
Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro and his Chinese counterpart will meet face-to-face this week, and for the second time in fewer than two months, as BRICS leaders descend on Brasília for the group’s 11th summit. As host, Brazil is breaking yet another foreign relations tradition: Bolsonaro decided to cancel the so-called BRICS outreach, a parallel program where regional leaders are invited by the host country to engage with the BRICS presidents. Bolsonaro refused to organize such a gathering without Venezuela’s Juan Guaidó, whom none of the other BRICS leaders recognize as president. The move was privately criticized by diplomats from the other BRICS countries, who after traveling all the way from Beijing, Moscow, Delhi and Pretoria, would have liked to meet the largest number of South American leaders possible. But despite the cancellation, the summit goes on. Xi will be in attendance, and the Brazil-China bilateral relationship will remain as strong as ever.
This is remarkable, considering that Bolsonaro’s election victory in 2018 was meant to initiate a period of crisis in the bilateral relationship with China, which has been Brazil’s most important trading partner since 2009. As a candidate, the former army captain visited Taiwan and announced that he planned to break the.. READ MORE
