By MARLON DE SOUZA*
When we observe half a century of practice of diplomacy between China and Brazil, we conclude that the Asian country is the ideal partner for us to build shared economic development over the next 50 years.
1.
August 15, 2024 marked the 50th anniversary of the resumption of diplomatic relations between Brazil and the People's Republic of China (PRC). The Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union (USSR) provides in the work Marxism and current affairs (1968) that scientific thought works outside the calendar of important dates. Scientific formulations are born at the moment analysis prepared them, the analytical activity of science is continuous. But this does not mean that science is indifferent to big dates.
On the contrary, during days of memorable events the most favorable situation often arises (this in particular for the social sciences) to take stock, totalize the discoveries and look to the future from the positions reached. When we observe half a century of the practice of diplomacy between the Socialist State of China and Brazil, we conclude that this Asian country is the ideal partner for us to build shared economic development over the next 50 years.
2.
In her current research “Convergence of two giants: the historical process of building diplomatic relations between Brazil and the People's Republic of China between the years 1950 and 1974” for her doctorate in history at the Federal University of Pernambuco (UFPE) Anna Maria Litwak Neves (2024) documents — from the Itamaraty Historical Archive in Rio de Janeiro — that international relations between the two countries go back long before 1974.
Anna Maria Litwak Neves reports that the first official contacts between Brazil and China took place at the end of the 19th century when China was still an empire and so was Brazil. The word empire here is used in the sense of a monarchical political regime in a feudal economic system.
Brazil's first official mission to China took place in 1879-1880, lasting around a year, with the aim of not only recognizing that then distant Asian empire, but also with the aim of drafting a commercial agreement between the Brazilian and Chinese empires. that would authorize the arrival of immigrants from China to Brazil. In other words, in the XNUMXth century a diaspora of Chinese had already formed in Brazil.
As is usual in the dynamics between nations, the Brazil-China trade agreement of 1879 resulted in a long process of negotiations. In this process, Brazil obtained the signature of two “Friendship, Commerce and Navigation” treaties in 1880 and 1881, the second being a modification of the first. These are considered the first formal treaties between Brazil and China and a milestone in this relationship.
In another mission, in 1893 — when Brazil had already become a republic — Brazil requested a new navigation and trade treaty that opened the way for the creation of a Brazilian diplomatic representation in China. Brazil's first first-class legation in China was created this year in Beijing, as well as two consulates. This means that in fact 1974 was the reestablishment of diplomatic relations between Brazil and China during the PRC period, because in fact Brazil and China relations were formed in 1893, 131 years ago.
3.
The Brazilian government did not recognize the government of the People's Republic of China built by the Socialist Proletarian Revolution in 1949. In a unilateral move, the Brazilian government in 1949 closed the Brazilian embassy in Beijing and its two consulates. The closure of the Brazilian embassy and consulates in China in 1949 was due to the Brazilian government having subordinated and linked its foreign policy to that of the United States (USA) in the post-Second World War and in the context of the Cold War.
The first visit of a Latin American head of state to the People's Republic of China was by João Goulart, then vice-president of the Republic of Brazil, who had been invited by Brazilian president Jânio Quadros to lead an official Brazilian mission to China, an occasion in which who signed an agreement between the Central Bank of China and the Bank of Brazil.
In 1971 the People's Republic of China was admitted to the UN. Mexico, Argentina and Chile had already recognized the People's Republic of China. The context in Brazil on that Thursday, August 15, 1974, at 18 pm, when diplomatic relations were established with China was one of military dictatorship (1964-1985), the country was governed by general-president Ernesto Geisel and the Minister of Foreign Affairs was Ambassador Antônio Francisco Azeredo da Silveira, one of whose advisors at the time was Celso Amorim, then at the beginning of his career — today Special Advisor for International Affairs to President Lula.
Since 1949 when Mao Zedong took over as president of China in Beijing through the process of the Socialist Proletarian Revolution until 1974, Brazil only recognized the island of Taiwan as China. Celso Amorim considers Azeredo da Silveira to be primarily responsible for Brazil's recognition of the Beijing government as the legitimate State of China and representative of the Chinese people.
Matias Spektor (2014) professor at the School of International Relations at Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV) — who organized the book Azeredo da Silveira: a statement — states in this work that “China's recognition was proof of Brazil's maturity in terms of foreign policy”. The United States made diplomacy with Beijing official only five years later, in 1979.
In this work by Matias Spektor (which is a transcription of a diplomat's statement recorded between 1974 and 1979) Azeredo da Silveira considers that Beijing's recognition “gave Brazil an extraordinary international volume in Western Europe, Africa and Asia. Brazil became the universal country because it was not afraid to recognize China.”
This does not mean that it was a simple process, there was significant resistance within the high level of the Brazilian government in 1974 against Beijing's recognition and there was an intense debate under the current anti-communist argument.
Brazil's international policy in that period is attributed to Azeredo da Silveira as “responsible pragmatism”, which the minister himself did not recognize as conceptual authorship, but the fact is that this expression has guided Brazilian foreign policy since then, with exceptions such as the government inept behavior of President Jair Bolsonaro and his Minister of Foreign Affairs Ernesto Araújo, who committed hostility in public and even xenophobic statements towards China.
In that year of 1974, General President Figueiredo's Brazil was an industrial country that grew 8,1%. China was a semi-feudal country when Mao Zedong took over in 1949 and was trying hard to industrialize. The establishment of relations with Brazil is part of this context, Mao Zedong was trying to break international isolation and follow an independent path away from the model that the USSR was trying to impose on him and establish economic relations with Third World countries to develop the productive forces of his country. country.
Mao Zedong established a relationship with the Brazilian State and at the same time responded to the request for help from the Brazilian people and their popular leaders to fight against the dictatorship that oppressed them. In the 1960s, leaders of the Peasant Leagues obtained support from China in the fight against the Brazilian dictatorship, just as the Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB) sent 41 militants for military training in China, 14 went to the Araguaia guerrilla.
The fact that the Chinese socialist government established diplomatic relations with the Brazilian dictatorial and reactionary right-wing government of the 1970s seems inconsistent with the theory of scientific socialism of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, but on the contrary it is absolutely loyal to Marxist theory.
“The study of dialectical materialism is even more indispensable for the cadres who direct the revolutionary movement, due to the two erroneous theories and working methods, subjectivism and mechanismism, which frequently appear among the cadres, and as a result often cause the militants go against Marxism, which leads the revolutionary movement down the wrong path. If we want to avoid such deficiencies, the only solution lies in the conscious study and understanding of dialectical materialism, to re-arm our brain.” (Zedong, 1938)
Chinese foreign policy at the time was directed by Chairman Mao Zedong and his Prime Minister Zhou Enlai. It was Zhou Enlai who formulated the five principles of peaceful coexistence that guide China's international policy to this day: (i) Mutual respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty; (ii) Non-aggression, non-interference in the internal affairs of others; (iii) Non-interference in the internal affairs of others; (iv) Equality and mutual benefit; (v) Peaceful coexistence.
These five principles were solidified in international relations and international law after China's participation in the Bandung Conference held in 1955 in Indonesia, which resulted in the formation of the countries of the Non-Aligned Movement. These Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence can be identified theoretically, empirically and in the practice of international relations with Brazil.
4.
China's relationship with Brazil has always been one of treating an equal and not a subordinate nation. And this is a principle of socialism that China has always been loyal to and still follows today. According to Lenin ([1917]2021) “if it were essential to give the briefest possible definition of imperialism, it would be necessary to say that imperialism is the monopolistic phase of capitalism”.
China does not implement this. China, as a socialist market economy, is integrated into the world economic system, which is capitalist, for objective reasons it competes for the international market and leadership of economic segments, but this is not the same as promoting monopoly. On the contrary, China provides competition within its national and external economy by controlling strategic sectors through state power, but even with more than one state-owned industry in the same economic segment to stimulate competition.
The mistaken interpretation that Brazil's relationship with China is neocolonial is present among Brazilian politicians, among members of the Brazilian left and among academics who have not studied China in depth for some time. A week ago I watched an economics professor state that China is imperialist in its relationship with Brazil and Latin America.
This economist is wrong, just as everyone who has this opinion is wrong. In the chance of this specific economist, she bases her opinion based on categories of analysis in ECLAC structuralism, in the developmental thought of Celso Furtado and Raúl Prebisch. These are theories that are incapable of interpreting contemporary China with precision because they are theories formulated to analyze dependent states, especially those in Latin America, and the Chinese state has been a revolutionary state since 1949, China since Mao Zedong has transformed capitalist state institutions (Executive, Judiciary and Legislative and other new types such as instances of popular participation) in socialist institutions, constituted a Socialist State.
The socialist economic laws engendered by China, although absolutely integrated into the international economy, gradually form a new international economic system opposed to the anarchy of capitalism that beforehand operates independently of the needs of humanity. Although today we no longer have two world systems, capitalist and socialist, as in the 70s of the last century, the principle of the Chinese socialist State is as an organ of defense for allied countries against American imperialist aggression.
The Chinese Socialist State exercises planned management of the economy and fulfills its economic-organizational function. This function is inaccessible to the capitalist State, due to its institutions being formed to primarily serve the interests of the bourgeoisie and the spontaneous character of economic development of capitalist society.
The activity of the Chinese socialist state is subordinated to the task of multilateralism and improving the lives of workers, raising the material level of the people, the most complete satisfaction of their growing needs, the basis of the rapid development of the productive forces. This task is conditioned by the nature of the socialist State, as a State of all working people with the working class at its head, by the demands of the fundamental economic law of socialism.
China follows in accordance with the principles of Marxist political economy in the perspective that the economic collaboration of countries in the socialist camp represents a “new type of international relations”. These mutual relations are based on the principles of full equality of rights, respect for territorial integrity, state independence and sovereignty, and non-intervention in each other's internal affairs. But these imprescriptible principles, despite their great importance, do not exhaust the essence of relations between countries.
The determining feature of these mutual relations is fraternal mutual assistance, in which the principle of socialist internationalism finds its active incarnation. The economic collaboration and fraternal mutual aid of socialist countries are immensely important for the victory of the new social arrangement. In the development and improvement of reciprocal links between socialist countries and their true allies, the unbreakable unity of the world socialist camp is manifested, based on the principles of proletarian internationalism.
The Brazil and China project, Earth-Resources Satellite (CBERS), launched in 1988, is a milestone in South-South cooperation in high technology, strengthening space infrastructure and boosting research, innovation and co-development in critical sectors.
During President Lula's first term visit to Beijing, in 2004, the Sino-Brazilian High-Level Commission on Consultation and Cooperation (COSBAN) was created, which is essential for coordinating our actions in various sectors and for deepening the integration of our governments and societies.
5.
In 1980, trade between the two countries was just US$1 billion. In 2009, China consolidated itself as Brazil's largest trading partner and, in 2023, this number reached US$150 billion.
Brazil needs to correct some ongoing actions regarding its treatment of China. PL deputies in the Brazilian Parliament are trying to create a Brazil-Taiwan parliamentary front. If the front is formally constituted, it is an act of disrespect towards China and could be interpreted as support for Taiwanese secessionist and separatist forces. The president of the Brazilian Federal Chamber and the most sensible sectors of the Brazilian Congress, the left-wing deputies in particular, must work together to block this initiative.
The Brazilian government has a Brazilian Commercial Office in Taipei, it is within this office that commercial relations must be concentrated and international institutional relations must be carried out with the central government in Beijing.
Even President Lula's government must monitor this situation carefully, on July 14th Luís Cláudio Villafañe Gomes Santos was appointed by the State “to serve as head of the Brazilian Commercial Office in Taipei”. Santos is a “first class minister”, the highest position in the diplomatic career, also known as “ambassador”. His predecessor Miguel Magalhães held the rank of “second class minister”, one below the maximum, which is important to demonstrate that the office does not have status diplomatic mission.
The one-China policy must be rigorously defended and preserved by Brazil.
For the next fifty years we need to strengthen our bilateral relations in an even more balanced way. Sustainable development, technological innovation and energy transition are the areas where Brazil and China must join forces to overcome both countries' and global challenges. Together they can work to strengthen multilateral international institutions and promote reform of the global governance system so that it is more fair and equitable.
We need to continue expanding our trade relations and the complementarity of our economies, Brazil must cooperate under any adverse circumstances for China's uninterrupted food security. Although this partnership is broadly positive and we must further intensify our markets, from now on Brazil needs to present and agree with China a medium and long-term project for direct investments in logistics infrastructure, Brazilian production capacity and transfer of technology.
The diversification of the commercial agenda and the establishment of partnerships for the neo-industrialization of Brazil and the installation of research and development (R&D) centers in our country to locally produce components and final products are equally fundamental to guarantee the sustainability and resilience of our economies and to overcome economic underdevelopment.
By expanding the commercial repertoire of manufactured products between Brazil and China with high added value, artificial intelligence, semiconductors, information and communication technology, renewable energy, transport, civil aviation and defense, we can reduce dependence on commodities. From the study of demand and market, we must build industries at the frontier of knowledge for the manufacture of consumer goods and capital goods in both countries in an integrated way of global value and production chains in order to break international monopoly capitalism and promote competition with countries at the center of capitalism.
The association of Brazil and China within the framework of the Nova Indústria Brasil, the Novo PAC and the Latin American Integration Investment Plan will increase the income and quality of life of our populations and will allow the highest level of integration of our countries.
The culmination of the celebration of Brazil and China's 50th anniversary will be in November this year when President Lula will receive Chinese President Xi Jinping in our country. An appropriate moment to reaffirm the strongest bonds of friendship between our people and the alliance between the two heads of state who share political ideals and causes. It will also be an opportune occasion for Brazil to present its intention with the Belt and Road Initiative — Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) — and to sign the accession to this robust project of integration of the two continents or at least to make significant progress in the negotiations.
From the perspective of the global political economy, the solid Brazil-China alliance is decisive for international democracy in its coordinated action in the BRICS, the G20, the United Nations and several other international forums working together to promote peace, security, economic development and supporting the reform of global governance to make it more efficient and representative of the interests of the Global South.[1]
*Marlon D'Souza, journalist, is a master's student in world political economy at UFABC.
Note
[1] This article is the result of my current studies in the area of World Political Economy developed at the Observatory of Brazilian Foreign Policy and International Insertion of Brazil (OPEB).
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