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China news tagged with: Brazil (19)

• Brazil Leader Leaves China with Deals under Belt

  

  Brazilian President Lula da Silva concluded his visit to China after arranging billions of dollars of deals between the two countries. From AFP:

  Before leaving Brazil, Lula had described the trip as “one of the most important” of his mandate amid a rise in the role of emerging nations at a time of global financial crisis.

  Lula and his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao agreed to strengthen ties and to deepen financial cooperation on economic and trade activities, according to a joint statement posted on the website of the foreign ministry here.

  “The two leaders said that ensuring a closer strategic partnership between China and Brazil had even greater significance in the current complicated international situation,” the statement said.

  » Read more
  • May 20, 2009 10:34 PM

• Brazil Turns to China to Help Finance Oil Projects

  

  The Wall Street Journal reports on Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s visit to Beijing and prospects for China-Brazilian relations:

  Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was set to arrive in Beijing Monday to meet with Chinese President Hu Jintao, who is expected to unleash billions of dollars of credit to help Brazil exploit its massive oil reserves. Brazil will return the favor by guaranteeing oil shipments to Chinese companies.

  The nations are being thrust together by the global financial crisis. Brazil’s state-controlled oil giant, Petroleo Brasileiro SA, wants to spend $174 billion over the next five years to elevate Brazil into the major leagues of oil-producing nations. With international capital markets on life support, China is among the few remaining sources of cash.

  Petrobras, as the company is known, is turning to China at a time when China’s appetite for raw materials has lifted economies across commodity-rich Latin America, blunting the impact of the global downturn. In March, China passed the U.S. as Brazil’s biggest trade partner.

  » Read more
  • May 18, 2009 10:42 PM

• Bruce Gilley: Look to Brasilia, Not Beijing

  

  From the Wall Street Journal:

  Threats to the global liberal order are usually identified with illiberal states. That’s why China, with its repressive domestic regime and its see-no-evil (unless related to the United States) foreign policy attracts so much attention these days.

  But a more compelling challenge to the current world order may be emerging from an unlikely trio of countries that boast both impeccable democratic credentials and serious global throw weight. They are India, Brazil and South Africa and their little-noticed experiment in foreign policy coordination since 2003 to promote subtle but potentially far-reaching changes to the international system has the potential to leave fears of a rising China in the dustbin of history.

  The quasi-alliance of these three powers has serious implications for the international system, and its major underwriter, the U.S., depending on how the challenge is handled. But an equally important, and quite unintended implication, is the sabotage of China’s great power ambitions. By robbing China of its claims to represent developing countries, this new cooperative trio could sideline China from the major debates in international affairs. That may be good news for domestic reform in China, which has long been stunted by the country’s great power ambitions.

  » Read more
  • April 7, 2009 8:19 PM

• Official: China Wants to Put $10B in Brazil Oil

  

  China is looking to Brazil for future oil supplies. From AP:

  China wants to loan Brazil’s state oil company $10 billion to help develop massive new oil fields in deep water off the coast of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil’s top energy official said in comments published Monday.

  Mines and Energy Minister Edison Lobao also told the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper that the United Arab Emirates has offered to finance field development, but he did not specify a price tag.

  Lobao said Chinese officials contacted his ministry to propose a loan and Petrobras then negotiated directly with the Chinese. He gave no details on the status of talks, and any deal would have to be approved by his ministry.

  » Read more
  • December 8, 2008 5:56 PM

• Brazil, Russia Want Summit with India, China

  

  On Wednesday, the presidents of Brazil and Russia agreed on a 2009 conference that will be held in Russia and will involve Russia, Brazil, India, and China. It is unknown whether or not China and India have agreed to participate. From the Associated Press:

  [Brazilian] President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Brazil, Russia, India and China “represent a powerful force,” signing a statement on the summit with his visiting Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev.

  China has become more involved in Latin America, as seen in this article from CDT, and has recently been improving ties with Russia, as seen in this article from CDT.

  » Read more
  • November 26, 2008 1:39 PM

• Tofu Politics

  

  China’s appetite for Brazilian-grown soy beans is helping soy farmers there to flourish, but government officials want China to do more than just buy raw materials: President Hu Jintao hasn’t come through on a promise to make sizable investments in South America and attitudes there are hardening. From NPR’s Morning Edition:

  China is emerging as an economic powerhouse throughout the world — including in the backyard of the United States.

  Hungry for trade with mineral- and agriculture-rich Latin America, the Chinese are binding themselves closer with the continent, snapping up commodities such as Brazilian soy and Chilean copper in record amounts.

  In Brazil, the soy bonanza is changing the fortunes of soy farmers, as well as the landscape. …

  Listen to the story here.

  » Read more
  • April 1, 2008 5:25 PM

• Brazil’s Lesson for China: Do Not Ignore Inequality

  

  Geoff Dyer writes on the Financial Times:

  In the late 1960s and 1970s, when Brazil was a dictatorship and the economy booming, social policy was neglected. “Grow the cake now, divide it up later”, became the mantra. For the past 20 years, China has sometimes adopted a similar approach.

  One of the less well-known features of China’s boom is the state’s withdrawal from providing health and education. Mao-era healthcare was far from perfect, but today most Chinese have no health insurance. In rural areas it is not hard to find a family bankrupted by medical bills. Schools are losing 1m children a year because parents cannot afford the fees. Given how often China is labelled a success and Latin America a failure, it is worth noting that in the past decade Brazil’s government has spent twice as much of its gross domestic product on health and education as communist China.

  » Read more
  • March 6, 2008 12:05 PM

• Bigger Ships to Take Ore to China - Marianne Barriaux

  

  From The Guardian:

  CVRD, the Brazilian mining group, is having the world’s largest ore carriers built to export iron ore to China as the latter’s insatiable demand for the raw materials to produce steel has pushed freight rates through the roof.

  The company, which last summer won the battle for Canada’s Inco with a bid of ¬£9.4bn, has ordered four ore carriers with a capacity of 388,000 tonnes. [Full text]

  See also a report from last month about CVRD’s worries that fulfilling China’s demands for iron could cause a shortage in Brazil’s iron ore market.

  » Read more
  • June 18, 2007 12:04 PM

• To Fortify China, Soybean Harvest Grows in Brazil - Alexei Barrionuevo

  

  

  From The New York Times:

  For more than 2,000 years, the Chinese have turned soybeans into tofu, a staple of the country’s diet.

  But as its economy grows, so does China’s appetite for pork, poultry and beef, which require higher volumes of soybeans as animal feed. Plagued by scarce water supplies, China is turning to a new trading partner 15,000 miles away ” Brazil ” to supply more protein-packed beans essential to a richer diet.China’s global scramble for natural resources is leading to a transformation of agricultural trading around the world. In China, vanishing cropland and diminishing water supplies are hampering the country’s ability to feed itself, and the increasing use of farmland in the United States to produce biofuels is pushing China to seek more of its staples from South America, where land is still cheap and plentiful. [Full Text]

  » Read more
  • April 5, 2007 7:55 PM

• Corruption Stains Timber Trade - Peter S. Goodman and Peter Finn

  

  From the Washington Post, a report on corruption in the logging industry which is allowing Chinese firms to deforest land from Siberia to Papua New Guinea to the Amazon, in order to make furniture and other goods for American and European consumers:

  Some of the largest swaths of natural forest left on the planet are being dismantled at an alarming pace to feed a global wood-processing industry centered in coastal China.

  Mountains of logs, many of them harvested in excess of legal limits aimed at preserving forests, are streaming toward Chinese factories where workers churn out such products as furniture and floorboards. These wares are shipped from China to major retailers such as Ikea, Home Depot, Lowe’s and many others. They land in homes and offices in the United States and Europe, bought by shoppers with little inkling of the wood’s origins or the environmental costs of chopping it down. [Full text]
  
  

  
  
  - A slideshow, titled, “China’s Insatiable Demand for Timber” accompanies the article.

  » Read more
  • March 31, 2007 8:40 PM

• Chinese influence in Brazil worries US Ôºç Humphrey Hawksley

  

  From BBC News (link):

  While the United States has been fighting its war on terror, a new political idea has begun to punch through with such weight that alarm bells have begun ringing loudly in Washington.

  Under the slogan of “peaceful rising”, China is selling itself to the developing world as an alternative model for ending poverty.

  The pitch is now winning an audience in Latin America, and Washington is despatching the assistant secretary of state responsible for the region, Thomas Shannon, to Beijing to find out what is going on.

  His aim is to negotiate the precise line which China must not cross in creating its new strategic alliance with Latin America, which has seen billions of dollars of Chinese money earmarked for infrastructure, transport, energy and defence projects there.

  » Read more
  • April 4, 2006 8:12 AM

• A hunger eating up the world - Jonathan Watts

  

  From the Guardian:

  China’s insatiable demand for proteins as well as oil is turning Brazil into the takeaway for the workforce of the world. In the second part of our series, we reveal how the soya trade is creating a gold rush which is deforesting the Amazon.

  » Read more
  • November 10, 2005 9:23 AM

• Brazil Regrets its China Affair - Matt Moffett

  

  From The YaleGlobal:

  Two years ago, to much fanfare, China and Brazil entered into a bilateral trade partnership, hoping to propel both populous, ambitious nations to the top of the development heap. With increased exports to China, Brazil made modest economic advances since entering the trade agreement. But in the same period, the world’s textile quotas expired, leaving many world economies vulnerable to China’s rock-bottom prices for manufactured goods. Now, as a glut of cheap Chinese imports floods Brazilian markets and the promised investments in Brazil have not materialized, the nation’s leaders are reconsidering the alliance. Hampered by internal corruption and conflicting domestic business interests, Brazil’s government wants to renegotiate the terms of their trade agreement with China. Unfortunately, having failed to elicit a voluntary restriction of Chinese exports, and having recognized its partner as a market economy, Brazil will have difficulty imposing antidumping penalties. Despite the emerging trade problems with the Asian giant, reports The Wall Street Journal, a long-term trade partnership may still shake out in Brazil’s favor. - YaleGlobal

  » Read more
  • October 14, 2005 3:54 PM

• Commentary: Brazil pays price for China pact - William Pesek Jr.

  

  From Bloomberg, via the International Herald Tribune:

  For a leader looking to bolster his nation’s economy and reduce its reliance on the United States, the idea seemed like a no-brainer: Hitch your fortunes to China. President Luiz In√°cio Lula da Silva of Brazil did just that…

  Now, Lula has some explaining to do to a populace wondering if he gave away too much, too fast.

  In the cafés, bars and corporate boardrooms of São Paulo, people are talking of how Brazil weakened its defenses for a rising economic power that is unwilling to do the same.

  » Read more
  • October 3, 2005 9:47 AM

• Brazil and China | Falling out of love - Economist

  

  From Economist.com:

  The high point came last November, when Hu Jintao, China’s president, arrived in Latin America to sign a series of trade and investment deals that heralded a new relationship between a rising superpower and a continent eager for economic growth. Nowhere was he greeted more warmly than in Brazil. Its left-leaning president, Luiz In√°cio Lula da Silva, sees China as the country’s most promising business partner and an ally in boosting Brazil’s global influence.

  Toasting their “strategic partnership”, Lula predicted that trade with China would more than double to $20 billion in three years. China promised to invest $10 billion in Brazil, mostly in infrastructure. Brazil, along with Argentina and Chile, recognised China as a “market economy”, thereby constraining their ability to retaliate against imports. Brazil hoped for Chinese backing for its bid for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.

  » Read more
  • August 4, 2005 9:39 AM

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