BEIJING, April 15 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has said that the United States should stop “encouraging war” in Ukraine “and start talking about peace”.
“The United States needs to stop encouraging war and start talking about peace, the European Union needs to start talking about peace,” Lula told reporters in Beijing at the end of a visit to China where he met with President Xi Jinping.
In that way, the international community will be able to “convince” Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky that “peace is in the interest of the whole world,” he said before leaving for the United Arab Emirates.
Unlike Western powers, neither China nor Brazil have imposed sanctions against Russia after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, and both seek to position themselves as mediators to achieve peace.
Before the trip, Lula had proposed creating a group of countries to mediate in the war, and said he would discuss this in Beijing.
Asked about the progress of this initiative after his conversation with Xi, Lula did not give details.
“It is important to have patience” to talk with Putin and Zelensky, he said.
“But above all, it is necessary to convince the countries that are supplying weapons, encouraging the war, to stop”.
Lula has used his visit to push the message that “Brazil is back” as a key player on the global stage — and to warn others that the South American country’s deepening relations with China are non-negotiable.
He lashed out at the power of the US dollar and the IMF and met representatives from Chinese tech giant Huawei in Shanghai, before meeting his counterpart Xi.
After Lula met Friday with China’s President Xi Jinping, Brazilian finance minister Fernando Haddad told reporters the nations are planning a “leap forward” in their relationship.
“President Lula wants a policy of reindustrialization. This visit starts a new challenge for Brazil: bringing direct investments from China,” Haddad said. He added that Brazil wants strong bonds with the U.S. as well, but noted with regret that recently “some American companies made the decision to leave Brazil.”
Industrial policy is near and dear to Lula, a former steelworker who became a union leader. Decades later, he launched his bid for a third presidential term on the gritty outskirts of Sao Paulo outside a car factory. That area — and the country — is churning out ever-fewer manufactured goods.
Brazil’s national statistics institute said in July 2022 that Brazil had lost 1 million industrial jobs over the prior decade, a decline of 11.6%. The institute said in 2021 that the country’s industrial sector represented 18.9% of Brazil’s GDP, down from 38% three decades earlier.
Speaking to journalists before leaving China, Lula said Saturday morning that Brazil’s relationship with the Asian giant “is going beyond that phase of commodity” exports. He added he visited the headquarters of Chinese telecommunications company Huawei because he needs to promote “a digital revolution” in his South American nation.
Over the years, Brazil became a big exporter of raw materials, and China has consumed them voraciously. China overtook the U.S. as Brazil’s biggest export market in 2009, and each year buys tens of billions of dollars of soybeans, beef, iron ore, poultry, pulp, sugar cane, cotton and crude oil.
The Asian giant and the Latin American powerhouse had a somewhat frosty relationship over the last four years when far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro held the presidency in Brasilia. Even some of Bolsonaro’s supporters in the agribusiness sector were critical of outbursts that antagonized China.
On Thursday, Lula meet with the CEO of Chinese manufacturer BYD, which produces electric buses and is in talks to start operations at a factory the Brazilian state of Bahia, Lula’s office said. The previous owner, Ford Motor Co., announced in 2021 that it was shuttering the plant, along with two others in Brazil.
Brazil is already the biggest recipient of Chinese investment in Latin America, according to Chinese state media. And Lula doesn’t just want more investment; he is also seeking partnerships that challenge the hegemony of Western-dominated economic institutions and geopolitics, including diplomacy over the war in Ukraine.
Lula’s visit included the swearing in Thursday of former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff as head of the Chinese-backed New Development Bank, which is funding infrastructure projects in Brazil and elsewhere in the developing world. — NNN-AGENCIES
