Beijing promises “new opportunities” for Brazil and the world

China promised “new opportunities” for Brazil on Friday, during a meeting in Beijing between President Xi Jinping and his Brazilian counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who the previous day had strongly criticized the omnipresence of the US dollar.

“China will pursue high-quality development, accelerate the creation of a new development paradigm and engage in promoting high-level opening-up,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by state media.

China’s development will open “new opportunities” for Brazil and the world, the same source added.

In Shanghai, President Lula had proclaimed on Thursday that Brazil was “back on the international stage”, thus wanting to turn the page on the isolation under the presidency of his far-right predecessor Jair Bolsonaro.

The 77-year-old left-wing leader, who had come to attend the inauguration of former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff (2011-2016) as head of the BRICS bank, headquartered in Shanghai, took the opportunity to criticize the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which he accused of “suffocating the economies of countries like Argentina”.

The BRICS are a group of emerging countries that brings together Brazil, China, India, Russia and South Africa, founded in 2006, during Lula’s first term as president (2003-2010).

“No leader can work with a knife to his throat because he is in debt,” the former union leader said.

The head of state of Latin America’s largest economy also lamented that the US dollar is still used for most international trade.

– “Inexplicable absence” –

“Why should all countries be forced to conduct their trade based on the dollar? Who decided that the dollar would be the (reference) currency?” asked the Brazilian president.

“Today, a country has to get dollars to export when it could do it in its own currency,” he added.

At the end of March, during an economic forum bringing together several dozen Brazilian business leaders in China, the two countries reached an agreement stipulating that their exchanges could be carried out in their own currency, without using the dollar.

Two banks – one from each country – have been designated to carry out the foreign exchange transactions that will allow the exporter to receive in their currency a payment made by the importer in their original currency.

This forum took place on the dates originally planned for Lula’s visit, which had to be postponed due to a “mild pneumonia” from which the Brazilian president was suffering.

Lula, who has been back in power in Brazil since January, and who has been in Beijing talking with President Xi Jinping, is due to hold a press conference early this evening.

“The era when Brazil was absent from major global decisions is over. We are back on the international stage after an inexplicable absence,” the former lathe operator, who visited his American counterpart Joe Biden in February, asserted on Thursday.

– Ukraine on the menu –

In his meeting with Xi Jinping, Lula had indicated that he wanted to discuss, among other things, the conflict in Ukraine.

China and Brazil have in common that they have never imposed financial sanctions on Russia.

Lula hopes to play the role of mediator again that contributed to the nuclear agreements between Iran and the United States during his second term (2007-2010).

China, meanwhile, is under increasing international pressure to put pressure on Moscow and bring it to the negotiating table.

This is Lula’s fourth official visit to China, where he began his third term in January, to, as he said on Monday before his departure, “strengthen” the relationship between the South American giant and the Asian giant.

“I will invite Xi Jinping to come to Brazil for a bilateral meeting, to show him the country and demonstrate projects in which Chinese investment interests us,” he added.

Trade between Brazil and China reached $150 billion in 2022, with Brazilians exporting $89.7 billion to China.

Before returning to Brasilia, Lula will travel to the United Arab Emirates on Saturday for a one-day official visit. AFP

AlloAfricaNews