April 21, 2023 - 10:00am
On a visit to Beijing last week, Brazil’s President Lula said the United States “needs to stop encouraging war and start talking about peace.” For this display of peace-mongering, Lula received a barrage of criticism, with US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby accusing him of “parroting Russian and Chinese propaganda without at all looking at the facts.”
But Lula has always sought to pursue an independent foreign policy. What has changed in the intervening period is the emergence of a multipolar order that has evidently left the US and its allies on the defensive.
The New York Times called Lula’s flouting of US leadership “theatrical”, while Politico conveyed Brussels’s concerns over Lula’s “increasingly hostile rhetoric” on Ukraine, explaining that the Brazilian President had gone from “hero to weirdo”.
For Brazil repeatedly refusing to send arms to Ukraine and criticising sanctions on Russia, it received maudlin responses asking what had happened to the Lula we remembered. Bloomberg went as far as to exclaim, “[w]ith democrats like Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who needs autocrats?” Never missing an opportunity for hypocritical moralisation, defenders of the Atlantic alliance have declared Ukraine a litmus test – one Brazil is failing.
For Lula though, independence is central, and is a matter of ideals as well as interests. Yes, China is the country’s biggest trading partner and its agricultural sector needs Russian fertiliser. But Lula has also long sought a global system in which authority was more widely shared. This also plays well with Workers’ Party supporters, serving as compensation for disappointing moderation in domestic policy.
Under previous Workers’ Party governments (2003-2016), Brazil attempted to extend South-South cooperation rather than default to US global leadership. At times, this brought consternation, such as when Brazil struck up a nuclear deal with Iran. But objectives like Brazil’s drive to gain a permanent UN Security Council seat have generally met with US approval.
Now though, the West’s attempt to globalise the Ukraine conflict is failing. US hegemony is ending, and de-dollarisation is supposedly happening “at a stunning pace”. Lula wants to accelerate this process, a desire made explicit in his visit to the so-called “Brics bank” in Shanghai, headed up by his protegée, former Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff. Notably, the Brazilian delegation that accompanied Lula to China was the president’s biggest ever in a foreign visit.
Of course, commercial interests will prevail, especially when the ideological fare on offer isn’t great. This much was made clear by Larry Summers, who remarked that in the developing world he regularly hears how “what we get from China is an airport, what we get from the US is a lecture.”
The reality is that NATO is involved in a proxy war, a fact that even the Washington Post now sees fit to openly debate. In this context, offering Russia and Nato an exit strategy seems like a sensible option — particularly when dealing with nuclear powers.
Yet, at least in the US’s “own” hemisphere, it looks like more carrot and less stick may be in the offing. Despite the tiff over Ukraine, the US has just offered Brazil $500m under the aegis of the Amazon Fund (up from $50m offered in February). In the emerging US-China cold war, money talks. China has plenty of the latter; now the US is playing catch-up.
Yes, rising geopolitical competition is certainly disquieting, but it offers countries like Brazil more room for manoeuvre. For all of the risk of being squished between US- and China-led blocs, playing one off against the other opens up many more opportunities than trying your luck when the US is the only game in town.
Alex Hochuli is a writer based in São Paulo. He hosts the Aufhebunga Bunga podcast and is co-author of The End of the End of History: Politics in the 21st Century.
Alex__1789
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeSounds like a great example of “There are no permanent friends or foes, only permanent interests”
When China was the leading power it expected all others to to Kowtow. The Chinese Communist party has killed over 70M of it’s own people. A Communist general said China can afford to lose 50M in a war and still win.
The Mandarins are cousins to the Mongols. The Mongol leader would throw bones he had finsihed eating over his shoulder to his Persian vassal as a way of feeding him.
I suggest you read up on debt bondage, used to be common in the World from the time of Sumer onwards and was very common in India and China.
If you cheer on China, then start learning how to Kowtow.
When China was the leading power it expected all others to to Kowtow. The Chinese Communist party has killed over 70M of it’s own people. A Communist general said China can afford to lose 50M in a war and still win.
The Mandarins are cousins to the Mongols. The Mongol leader would throw bones he had finsihed eating over his shoulder to his Persian vassal as a way of feeding him.
I suggest you read up on debt bondage, used to be common in the World from the time of Sumer onwards and was very common in India and China.
If you cheer on China, then start learning how to Kowtow.
Sounds like a great example of “There are no permanent friends or foes, only permanent interests”
And again I say this- why should the Global South be dragged into a crisis not of their making? Lula is absolutely correct in his approach as is India and Indonesia.
And again I say this- why should the Global South be dragged into a crisis not of their making? Lula is absolutely correct in his approach as is India and Indonesia.
The BRICs’ money will be safe with Dilma in charge! They may find they don’t actually own those airports. Damned ungrateful of Lula given the entire Western political elite were cheering him on and doing their best to undermine his predecessor.
The BRICs’ money will be safe with Dilma in charge! They may find they don’t actually own those airports. Damned ungrateful of Lula given the entire Western political elite were cheering him on and doing their best to undermine his predecessor.
I’d hoped to see the collapse of the American empire in my lifetime, but I hadn’t expected it to be so quick.
I’d hoped to see the collapse of the American empire in my lifetime, but I hadn’t expected it to be so quick.
I’m not sure what the US position is anymore. Do they want Russia to retreat from the lend it invaded in February, 2022, or do they now want Crimea back? If it’s the latter, that’s clearly problematic.
I doubt they care, seeing as the point of the war is to bleed Russia for as long as they can.
I doubt they care, seeing as the point of the war is to bleed Russia for as long as they can.
I’m not sure what the US position is anymore. Do they want Russia to retreat from the lend it invaded in February, 2022, or do they now want Crimea back? If it’s the latter, that’s clearly problematic.