Lula Thanks Xi for Commitment to China-Brazil Relationship

On Thursday, President-elect Lula da Silva thanked President Xi Jinping for his interest in strengthening relations between Brazil and China.

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"Today I received with satisfaction a letter from President Xi Jinping, reinforcing his congratulations on the election result, the friendship and global strategic partnership between our countries, and the long-term vision of relations between Brazil and China," Lula said.

Since Jair Bolsonaro assumed the Brazilian presidency in January 2019, the bilateral relationship has experienced various ups and downs as his supporters adopted militant anti-China behavior, which was reinforced during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Reacting to this position in April 2021, the president of the Brazil-China Parliamentary Front Fausto Pinato described as irresponsible the statement of the Economy Minister Paulo Guedes who blamed the Chinese for manufacturing the Sars-CoV-2 coronavirus.

Pinato denounced those statements as a smokescreen that far-right politicians used to hinder the work of a parliamentary commission, which was investigating Bolsonaro's negligence in managing Brazilian public health and economy.

The friction between both countries became more intense when Ernesto Araujo, a diplomat with close ties to the Brazilian extreme right, was appointed Foreign Affairs Minister, a post he had to resign in March 2021 due to pressure from Congress.

During the presidential campaign, Lula stressed that the Bolsonaro administration had turned Brazil into "an international pariah" and promised to win back the country's credibility.