China-Brazil trade on track, but Huawei tension may be threat to relations
- Brazil’s exports to China in first five months jump 12.4 per cent to US$27.5 billion
- Despite friction over the 5G network and coronavirus, tariff tactics against Brazil are unlikely because of China’s dependence on soybeans
The following day, the Folha de São Paulo newspaper said Foreign Minister Ernesto Araujo had told Bolsonaro that Huawei should be banned from bidding for the 5G network. The newspaper cited a document in which Araujo reportedly said the Chinese company was a security risk. A decision on 5G is expected next year.
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Niu Haibin, a senior fellow at the Centre for American Studies at the Shanghai Institute of International Studies, said that as US-China relations deteriorated over the past year, large emerging countries such as Brazil started feeling the pressure to choose sides.
“The [Brazilians] will face American pressure like the UK and Germany on the issue of 5G technology,” he said.
As the pandemic gets worse in Brazil – the country now trails only the US in infections and fatalities – so too relations with China began to fray. Huawei is just the most recent point of friction.
In April, the Brazilian president’s son, Eduardo Bolsonaro, retweeted a reference to Covid-19 as the “Chinese virus”, a term that angered Beijing when used by US President Donald Trump in reference to the first outbreak of the disease in the central China city of Wuhan.
