China-Brazil cooperation: A model of South-South collaboration

Relations between China and Brazil date back to 1812, when the first group of Chinese tea producers from Hubei Province arrived in Brazil. In 1974, the two countries established diplomatic relations. Since then, political relations, economic collaboration, and people-to-people exchanges between the two sides have progressively improved.

China established a "strategic partnership" with Brazil in 1993, and they elevated it to a "comprehensive strategic partnership" in 2012.

Brazil has yet to sign a Belt-Road Cooperation Agreement with China, but this has no impact on bilateral trade or investment. Indeed, economic cooperation has served as a significant engine for China-Brazil relations during the last several decades.

Brazil's socioeconomic progress is hampered by a "bottleneck" caused by a lack of capital accumulation and investment. China has made investments in Brazil's infrastructure, mining, manufacturing, agriculture, and other industries. The most notable success story is Brazil's Belo Monte-Rio de Janeiro ultra-high-voltage direct current (UHVDC) transmission project, which was completed in 2019 and was the world's longest 800kV power transmission line. It allows 16 million Brazilians to easily access power.

It is well known that China's economy has expanded rapidly during the last few decades. Its rapid growth was heavily reliant on the import of minerals, energy, and agricultural produce from Brazil and other countries. To sustain its high growth rate, China will continue to import a substantial amount of products from overseas, many of them from Brazil.

This type of collaboration is mutually beneficial. While China's economy benefits from imports, Brazil earns foreign currency. Many Brazilian economists believe that the "commodity boom" has been extremely beneficial to the Brazilian economy.

In the age of globalization, competitiveness is important. There are numerous strategies to increase competitiveness, one of which is to capitalize on each country's unique comparative advantage. Comparative advantage is closely related to complementarity. Alternatively, complementarity is the basis for economic interactions.

As a result, to promote economic interactions, China and Brazil must capitalize on their respective comparative advantages while avoiding the trap of "going beyond complementarity," as some Brazilians urge. Brazil's comparative advantage is its abundant natural resources, whereas China's comprises high technology, among other things.

In recent years, economic cooperation between the two countries has expanded to cover space, high-tech, currency swaps, e-commerce, and other areas, with encouraging results. China's attempts to foster the development of the "new nature of productive forces" will open up greater prospects for high-tech collaboration between the two countries.

In 2003, China established the Forum for Economic and Trade Cooperation with Portuguese-speaking Countries, establishing its Permanent Secretariat in Macau Special Administrative Region. As a result, China and Brazil strengthened their commercial links through Macau, which has long had strong historical and cultural ties with Brazil and other Portuguese-speaking countries.

Brazil has been working hard to transform itself from a regional power to a global force.

On the one hand, the globe is experiencing unprecedented change; on the other, China and Brazil are both members of the United Nations, the G20, the BRICS, the AIIB (Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank), and other organizations. As a result, there are several opportunities for them to collaborate on a global scale. This collaboration is possible because, as the two most important rising economies, they consistently defend "true multilateralism" by adhering to the values ​​of the UN Charter, fostering democratization of international relations, and rejecting hegemony and power politics.

Global issues have become more prominent, yet global governance is as good as stagnant due to a lack of global leadership and international coordination, which Chinese President Xi Jinping called "a deficit of (global) governance." To address this challenge, China and Brazil, two of the world's most important emerging countries, must strengthen collaboration and coordination to help eradicate the imbalance.

They have effectively collaborated on topics such as addressing climate change, revising the International Monetary Fund's quota system, and opposing trade protectionism.

China has pursued a multilateral "collective diplomacy" policy with Latin American countries. Brazil is the region's largest country and plays an important role in this plan. If "collective diplomacy" can translate into action, Brazil's position should not be overstated.

In the last 50 years, China and Brazil's relationship has already achieved three significant "firsts": Brazil was the first developing country in the world to establish a strategic partnership with China; China is Brazil's largest trading partner; and Brazil has signed more cooperation agreements with China than any other Latin American country. In the coming years, Brazil will likely continue establishing additional "firsts" in their bilateral relationship.

(The author is a professor at Macau University of Science and Technology. His research fields include Chinese foreign policies, international relations, world economy, global governance, Latin America, Europe, BRICS, emerging economies, etc.)