Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva defended stronger ties with Beijing in order to reorient the global geopolitical order, possibly boosting Chinese plans to counter decades of U.S. preeminence in world affairs.
“Our interests in the relationship with China are not just commercial,” Lula said during a meeting with Zhao Leji, the chairman of China’s National Peoples Congress standing committee, in Beijing on Friday. “We have political interests and we have interests in building a new geopolitics so that we can change world governance by giving more representation to the United Nations.”
The Brazilian leader’s trip to China was broadly pitched as an opportunity to strengthen economic and trade ties between the two nations. Russia’s war in Ukraine, meanwhile, was one of the key themes in Friday’s bilateral meeting between Lula and Chinese President Xi Jinping, as both leaders seek larger diplomatic roles in efforts to restore peace.
