Back from BRICS Summit, Brazil Bucks Belt and Road Initiative

This year marks the 50th anniversary of Brazil-China relations, and a series of high-level diplomatic encounters have showcased their growing partnership. Last week, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva attended the BRICS+ summit (remotely, due to a head injury), and in November he will host Xi Jinping during the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro. Last week, Lula’s top advisers traveled to Beijing to discuss the potential for Brazil to join the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Observers have long anticipated that Brazil might sign onto Xi’s signature foreign policy project under Lula, whose administration prepared a proposal to join the BRI this summer. But as Igor Patrick reported for the South China Morning Post, a top Lula official announced this week that Brazil ultimately decided against joining the BRI:

Celso Amorim, special presidential adviser for international affairs, told Brazilian newspaper O Globo that Brazil wants to “take the relationship with China to a new level, without having to sign an accession contract”.

“We are not entering into a treaty,” Amorim said, explaining that Brazil does not want to take Chinese infrastructure and trade projects as “an insurance policy”.

According to Amorim, the aim is to use some of the belt and road framework to find “synergy” between Brazilian infrastructure projects and the investment funds associated with the initiative, without necessarily formally joining the group.

The Chinese “call it the belt [and road] … and they can give whatever names they want, but what matters is that there are projects that Brazil has defined as a priority and that may or may not be accepted [by Beijing]”, Amorim said. [Source]

Brazil now joins fellow BRICS+ member India in having publicly rebuffed the BRI, creating more doubt about the bloc’s overall cohesion and willingness to coalesce around China’s global vision. But in Wednesday’s China-Global South Project (CGSP) newsletter, Cobus van Staden stated that it would be an “oversimplification” to view Brazil’s decision as merely a rejection of China and an embrace of the U.S., adding that the rejection “may be more reflective of [Brazil and India’s] dedication to being tricksy foreign policy players, and in that sense, an indicator of growing global multipolarity. Ironically, Xi praised the BRICS’ promotion of multipolarity in the run-up to the Kazan summit.” Indeed, Brazil has long pursued a policy of independence and non-alignment on the international stage. In an analysis piece, van Staden unpacked certain key elements of Brazil’s rejection of the BRI:

SYNERGIES NOT A CONTRACT: While the decision will likely cast a pall over China-Brazil relations, Amorim hastened to point out that the two remain economic and geopolitical partners, for example, in jointly crafting a peace plan for Ukraine. However, rather than a full alignment, Amorim said it reflects a more fine-grained issue-by-issue approach: “The key word is synergy. It’s not about signing something like an insurance policy. We’re not entering into an accession treaty. It’s a negotiation of synergies.”

BRICS: Brazil is now the second BRICS member not to join the BRI after India. The fact was not ignored in the Indian press, where the decision is being framed as Brazil “following India’s lead.” The decision reveals an interesting cleavage in the BRICS. The fact that two of the most powerful economies (and founding members) of the non-Western bloc chose not to join the most significant non-Western connectivity initiative in the world is significant. However, it may also reflect Brazil and India’s internal calculations based on their own dreams of becoming superpowers rather than a fundamental disagreement on the BRI among the BRICS. [Source]

Last week, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai warned Brasilia to “weigh the risks” before deciding whether or not to join the BRI. The Chinese embassy then criticized those “disrespectful” comments, which the Global Times argued were “steeped in the specter of [the] ‘Monroe Doctrine.’” Earlier this month, Matt Sandy wrote for Dialogue Earth about the differing motivations within the Brazilian government in the lead-up to this week’s decision:

“There is a different perspective between the president’s inner circle and the foreign ministry,” says Pablo Ibañez, geopolitics professor at the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro. “Lula knows the value of growing relationships with the Global South and prefers to foster relations outside of the axis of the United States and Europe.”

Ibañez says the foreign ministry “is very concerned about the implications”, however. He adds: “What can we gain from it? Could it bring reprisals from the United States? The Belt and Road is another stage in the expansion of Chinese global power. It is enormous, and it is fundamental to the Chinese government.”

According to experts interviewed by Dialogue Earth, Brazil [was] carefully weighing the potential benefits of joining in an attempt to extract maximum leverage from China’s negotiators.

[…] The specifics are uncertain, but specialists say Brazil [was] likely looking for support that goes beyond the export of commodities to China and the import of finished goods in return. [Source]

During Lula’s last visit to China in April 2023, he signed 15 different agreements for cooperation with China in a variety of sectors. Brazilian-Chinese media cooperation this year has led to certain soft-power gains for China. Chinese state media also posted videos this week showing Brazilian media professionals attending a tour in China. The Global Times published a glowing editorial last month titled, “Growing appeal of Belt and Road Initiative in Latin America an inevitable, prevailing trend.”

However, friction between the two countries has grown, particularly in the economic domain. Brazil has enacted 59 anti-dumping measures against China, more than against any other country. Its Foreign Trade Chamber recently imposed new import tariffs on a variety of Chinese products, including iron, steel, and fiber optics. Brazil’s enormous commercial dependence on the Chinese market for its exports, especially soybeans, has created major security risks for strategic sectors and put pressure on Brazil’s policy decisions. For more on Brazil’s relationship with China, see this CGSP interview last month with South China Morning Post correspondent Igor Patrick and Thiago Bessimo, co-founder of the Portuguese-language site Observa China (recorded at a time when Brazil looked more likely to join the BRI).