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- Mariana Schreiber – @marischreiber
- BBC News Brazil in Brasilia
Credit, Reuters
Commenting on Brazil’s adherence to an alliance against the use of Huawei’s 5G technology, Eduardo Bolsonaro directly accused China of espionage.
The latest crisis caused by a new speech by federal deputy Eduardo Bolsonaro (Republicans-SP) that attacks China could bring “serious damage” to Brazil if the Asian power adopts trade barriers against Brazilian products and looks for other suppliers of raw Materialsretired diplomat Roberto Abdenur, who served as ambassador to Beijing (1989 to 1993) and the United States (2004 to 2006), told BBC News Brazil.
Although many in Brazil view China as dependent on Brazilian imports of items such as soybeans, meat, iron ore, sugar and cellulose, Abdenur warns that the Xi Jinping government has been looking for new suppliers and has already taken economic retaliation this year against another. important business partner. , Australia, in reaction to criticism from Australian officials who called for an international investigation into the origin of the coronavirus.
According to World Bank data, Australia is the sixth exporter to China, ahead of Brazil, which appears in seventh place.
Credit, Zeca Ribeiro / Chamber of Deputies
‘It is an illusion to think that China will continue to depend forever on our imports,’ says Roberto Abdenur
“Brazil is putting its feet in its hands in an unreasonable and counterproductive way. Eduardo Bolsonaro speaks as a deputy, as the son of the president and as president of the Foreign Relations Commission of the Chamber. He is immensely irresponsible, now he threatens to cause serious damage to the interests of Brazil with China ”, said Abdenur.
“It is an illusion to think that China will continue to depend on our imports forever. There are other countries in the world. China is financing important agricultural projects in Africa, in regions that have a climate and soil similar to Brazil, it is also in talks to increase production of soy in Russia and Ukraine ”, he exemplified.
Eduardo Bolsonaro accused China of spying and attacked the Communist Party
In the new episode of crisis with the Brazilian government, the Chinese Embassy in Brasilia raised the tone by threatening Brazil “with negative consequences” in a note to the posts made on Twitter by Eduardo Bolsonaro, who in addition to being a deputy is the president’s son Jair Bolsonaro. and president of the Chamber’s Foreign Relations Commission.
Commenting on Brazil’s adherence to a US-sponsored alliance against the use of 5G technology by the Chinese company Huawei, the parliamentarian directly accused the Asian country of espionage.
“The government of Jair Bolsonaro has declared its support for the Clean Network alliance, launched by the Donald Trump administration, creating a global alliance for a safe 5G without the spying of China,” Eduardo Bolsonaro wrote on Monday night (11/23) ).
“The program that Brazil has joined aims to protect its participants from invasions and violations of the private information of citizens and companies. This occurs with the repudiation of entities classified as aggressive and enemies of freedom, such as the Chinese Communist Party”, also added on Twitter. the son of the president.
On Tuesday, the Chinese embassy, which usually protests only with the authorization of the government in Beijing, issued a tough note, despite the fact that the deputy had already deleted the post.
The statement described Eduardo Bolsonaro’s speech as “totally unacceptable” and threatened Brazil with retaliation if the parliamentarian and “other personalities” did not abandon “infamous statements that, in addition to disrespecting the facts of Sino-Brazilian cooperation and the mutual benefit that promotes, undermines the climate of friendship between the two countries and damages the image of Brazil. “
We urge these personalities to stop following the rhetoric of the American extreme right, to stop the misinformation and slander about China and the Sino-Brazilian friendship, and to avoid going too far down the wrong path, in view of the interests from both sides. peoples and the general trend of bilateral association. Otherwise, they will bear the negative consequences and with the historical responsibility of disturbing the normality of the China-Brazil partnership, ”the note also says.
To BBC News Brazil, Ambassador Abdenur recalled that the Chinese embassy had already reacted to other criticisms from Eduardo Bolsonaro and federal government officials, but considered that this demonstration “was the most emphatic, because it hints at the possibility of retaliation, with serious consequences for the Brazil”.
In its assessment, the White House is “hypocritical” in saying that China uses its 5G technology for espionage, given the history of the United States in this area. In 2015, for example, the leak of classified documents of US diplomacy through the WikiLeaks website revealed that the US National Security Agency (NSA) spied on then-President Dilma Rousseff and 29 other PT government phones. , including that of ministers, diplomats and advisers.
“The country that spies the most on others is the United States. I think we should not give in to American pressure (on 5G),” Abdenur said.
‘Brazil is an international pariah alongside North Korea’
Credit, Reuters
The Brazilian government already has as a great foreign policy challenge the arrival of Joe Biden to the US presidency, recalls Abdenur
For the former ambassador to Washington and Beijing, Brazil today finds itself in “the worst of all worlds” as it seeks a fight with China as it faces a difficult relationship with the United States under Joe Biden, president-elect who takes office on January 20.
It says Brazil is in “very serious disagreement with three of the four priorities of the Biden government”: combating climate change, racism and the coronavirus pandemic (the fourth priority is the recovery of the US economy).
“It is a crazy, crazy, uncontrolled foreign policy that has done immense damage to Brazil. We are running the risk of becoming more marginalized than we already are at the international level. There are two countries in the world that are marginalized today: Brazil and North Korea, I don’t see another, ”said the former ambassador, placing Brazil on the side of an old dictatorship that governs the most closed country in the world.
“Venezuela in a way too (is an outcast), but Venezuela has its friends,” he replied, referring to the Venezuelan alliance with nations like Russia and China, when asked about the country governed by Nicolás Maduro.
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