can china help brazil restart its global soft power?

中国能否帮助巴西重启全球软实力？
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


ten days of full immersion in brazil are not for the faint-hearted. even restricted to the top two megalopolises, sao paulo and rio, watching live the impact of interlocking economic, political, social and environmental crises exacerbated by the jair bolsonaro project leaves one stunned.
the return of luiz inácio lula da silva for what will be his third presidential term, starting january 1, 2023, is an extraordinary story trespassed by sisyphean tasks. all at the same time he will have to
fight poverty;
reconnect with economic development while redistributing wealth;
re-industrialize the nation; and
tame environmental pillage.
that will force his new government to summon unforeseen creative powers of political and financial persuasion.
even a mediocre, conservative politician such as geraldo alckmin, former governor of the wealthiest state of the unx, sao paulo, and coordinator of the presidential transition, was simply astonished at how four years of the bolsonaro project let loose a cornucopia of vanished documents, a black hole concerning all sorts of data and inexplicable financial losses.

在巴西10天的沉浸式体验不适合胆小的人。即使仅限于前两个特大城市圣保罗和里约热内卢，亲眼看到由雅伊尔·博索纳罗之下加剧的、相互关联的经济、政治、社会和环境危机的影响，也会让人感到震惊。
从2023年1月1日开始，路易斯·伊纳西奥·卢拉·达席尔瓦的回归，将是达席尔瓦的第三个总统任期，这是一个被西西弗斯式任务所侵扰的、不同寻常的故事。同时他也必须这么做：
解决贫困；
在重新分配财富的同时重新与经济发展联系起来;
让国家重新工业化;
控制环境掠夺。
这将迫使他的新政府在政治和财政方面发挥不可预见的创造性力量。即使是像杰拉尔多·阿尔克明这样平庸的保守派政治家，他是巴西最富有圣保罗州的前州长，也是总统过渡的协调人，依然震惊于博尔索纳罗四年的治理，是如何让大量文件消失、并制造了一个涉及各种数据和莫名其妙的经济损失的黑洞。

it’s impossible to ascertain the extent of corruption across the spectrum because simply nothing is in the books: governmental systems have not been fed since 2020.
alckmin summed it all up: “the bolsonaro government happened in the stone age, where there were no words and numbers.”
now every single public policy will have to be created, or re-created from scratch, and serious mistakes will be inevitable because of lack of data.
and we’re not talking about a banana republic – even though the country concerned features plenty of (delicious) bananas.
by purchasing power parity (ppp), according to the international monetary fund (imf), brazil remains the eighth-ranked economic power in the world even after the bolsonaro devastation years – behind china, the us, india, japan, germany, russia and indonesia, and ahead of the uk and france.

要确定各个领域的腐败程度是不可能的，因为根本没有什么记录在账本上。自2020年以来，政府系统就没有得到供养。阿尔克敏总结道：“博尔索纳罗政府发生在没有文字和数字的石器时代。” 现在，每一项公共政策都必须从头制定或重新制定，而由于缺乏数据，严重的错误将不可避免。我们并不是在谈论香蕉共和国——尽管有关国家以大量(美味的)香蕉为特色。

by purchasing power parity (ppp), according to the international monetary fund (imf), brazil remains the eighth-ranked economic power in the world even after the bolsonaro devastation years – behind china, the us, india, japan, germany, russia and indonesia, and ahead of the uk and france.
a concerted imperial campaign since 2010, duly denounced by wikileaks, and implemented by local comprador elites, targeted the dilma rousseff presidency – the brazilian national entrepreneurial champions – and led to rousseff’s (illegal) impeachment and the jailing of lula for 580 days on spurious charges (all subsequently dropped), paved the way for bolsonaro to win the presidency in 2018.
were it not for this accumulation of disasters, brazil – a natural leader of the global south – by now might possibly be placed as the fifth-largest geo-economic power in the world.

根据国际货币基金组织(imf)的数据，按购买力平价(ppp)计算，即使在博尔索纳罗的破坏多年后，巴西仍是世界上排名第八的经济大国，仅次于中国、美国、印度、日本、德国、俄罗斯和印度尼西亚，领先于英国和法国。
自2010年以来，一场协调一致的、针对巴西国家企业家冠军迪尔玛·罗塞夫担任总统期间的帝国运动(维基解密适时谴责了这场运动，并由当地买办精英实施)，导致罗塞夫(非法)被弹劾，卢拉因虚假指控被监禁580天(后来都被撤销了)，为博尔索纳罗赢得2018年总统大选铺平了道路。
如果不是这些灾难的累积，巴西作为南半球的天然领导者，现在可能会成为世界第五大地缘经济大国。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


what the investment gang wants
paulo nogueira batista jr, a former vice-president of the new development bank (ndb), or brics bank, goes straight to the point: brazil’s dependence on lula is immensely problematic.
batista sees lula facing at least three hostile blocs.the extreme right supported by a significant, powerful faction of the armed forces – and this includes not only bolsonarists, who are still in front of a few army barracks contesting the presidential election result;
the physiological right that dominates congress – known in brazil as “the big center”;
international financial capital – which, predictably, controls the bulk of mainstream media.
the third bloc, to a great extent, gleefully embraced lula’s notion of a united front capable of defeating the bolsonaro project (which project, by the way, never ceased to be immensely profitable for the third bloc).

投资团体想要什么
巴西新开发银行(ndb)或金砖银行前副行长小保罗·诺盖拉·巴蒂斯塔一语中的：巴西对卢拉的依赖是个大问题。巴蒂斯塔认为卢拉至少面临三个敌对集团：
由武装部队中一个重要而强大的派系支持的极右翼——这不仅包括仍在几个军营前抗议总统选举结果的博尔索纳罗支持者；
主导国会的必要性，在巴西国会被称为“大中心”;
国际金融资本，可以预见，它们控制着大部分主流媒体。
第三阵营在很大程度上欣然接受了卢拉关于建立能够击败博尔索纳罗项目的统一战线的概念(顺便说一句，这个项目对第三阵营来说从未停止过巨大的利润)。

now they want their cut. mainstream media instantly turned to corralling lula, operating a sort of “financial inquisition,” as described by crack economist luiz gonzaga belluzzo.
by appointing longtime workers’ party loyalist fernando haddad as finance minister, lula signaled that he, in fact, will be in charge of the economy. haddad is a political-science professor and was a decent minister of education, but he’s no sharp economic guru. acolytes of the goddess of the market, of course, dismiss him.
once again, this is the trademark lula swing in action: he chose to place more importance on what will be complex, protracted negotiations with a hostile congress to advance his social agenda, confident that all the lineaments of economic policy are in his head.
a lunch party with some members of sao paulo’s financial elite, even before haddad’s name was announced, offered a few fascinating clues. these people are known as the “faria limers” – after the high-toned faria lima avenue, which houses quite a few post-mod investment banks’ offices as well as google and facebook hqs.

现在他们想要自己的分成。主流媒体立即转向拉拢卢拉，进行了一种“金融审判”，正如出色的经济学家路易斯·冈萨加·贝鲁佐所描述的那样。卢拉任命长期忠于工人党的哈达德为财政部长，这表明他实际上将负责经济。哈达德是一位政治学教授，也是一位体面的教育部长，但他并不是一位精明的经济大师。当然，市场女神的助手们把他解雇了。
再一次，这是卢拉标志性的行动：他选择更加重视与敌对的国会进行的复杂而漫长的谈判，以推进他的社会议程，他相信经济政策的所有特征都在他的脑海中。
甚至在哈达德的名字被宣布之前，与一些圣保罗金融精英的午餐派对就提供了一些有趣的线索。这些人被称为“法利亚利马人”——以高调的法利亚利马大道命名，这条大道上有不少后现代投资银行的办公室，还有谷歌和facebook的总部。



图：圣保罗法利亚利马大道

lunch attendees included a smattering of rabid anti-workers’ party investors, the proverbial unreconstructed neoliberals, yet most were enthusiastic about opportunities ahead to make a killing, including an investor looking for deals involving chinese companies.
the neoliberal mantra of those willing – perhaps – to place their bets on lula (for a price) is “fiscal responsibility.” that frontally clashes with lula’s focus on social justice.
that’s where haddad comes up as a helpful, polite interlocutor because he does privilege nuance, pointing out that only looking at market indicators and forgetting about the 38% of brazilians who only earn the minimum wage (1,212 brazilian real or us$233 per month) is not exactly good for business.

参加午餐的有少数狂热的反工人党投资者，他们是公认的顽固的新自由主义者，但大多数人都对未来的大赚一笔的机会充满热情，其中包括一位正在寻找涉及中国公司的交易的投资者。
那些愿意(也许)把赌注押在卢拉身上的人的新自由主义口头禅是“财政责任”。这与卢拉对社会公正的关注正面冲突。
这就是哈达德作为一个有帮助、有礼貌的对话者出现的地方，因为他做了优先级的细微差别，指出：只看市场指标而无视38%的巴西人只赚最低工资(每月1212巴西雷亚尔或233美元)，这并不利于生意。

the dark arts of non-government
lula is already winning his first battle: approving a constitutional amendment that allows financing of more social spending.
that allows the government to keep the flagship bolsa família welfare program – of roughly $13 a month per poverty-level family – at least for the next two years.
a stroll across downtown sao paulo – which in the 1960s was as chic as mid-manhattan – offers a sorrowful crash course on impoverishment, shut-down businesses, homelessness and raging unemployment. the notorious “crack land” – once limited to a street – now encompasses a whole neighborhood, much like junkie, post-pandemic los angeles.
rio offers a completely different vibe if one goes for a walk in ipanema on a sunny day, always a smashing experience. but ipanema lives in a bubble. the real rio of the bolsonaro years – economically massacred, de-industrialized, occupied by militias – came up in a roundtable downtown where i interacted with, among others, a former energy minister and the man who discovered the immensely valuable pre-salt oil reserves.

非政府组织的黑魔法
卢拉已经赢得了他的第一场战役：批准了一项宪法修正案，允许为更多的社会支出提供资金。这使得政府至少在接下来的两年里可以保留bolsa família的旗舰福利计划——每个贫困家庭每月大约13美元。
漫步在圣保罗市中心——曾经在20世纪60年代，这里和曼哈顿中部一样时髦——如今你会看到贫困、企业倒闭、无家可归和严重失业的令人悲伤的速成课程。臭名昭著的“可卡因之地”——曾经仅限于一条街——现在包括了整个社区，很像新冠疫情后吸毒的洛杉矶。
如果你在阳光明媚的日子里去伊帕内玛散步，里约热内卢会提供完全不同的氛围，历来是一次很棒的体验。但伊帕内玛生活在一个泡沫中。博尔索纳罗时代真正的里约热内卢——经济上的大屠杀、去工业化、民兵占领——出现在市中心的一次圆桌会议上，我在那里与一位前能源部长以及发现了极具价值的盐下石油储备的人进行了互动。

in the q&a, a black man from a very poor community advanced the key challenge for lula’s third term: to be stable, and able to govern, he has tohave the vast poorest sectors of the population backing him up. this man voiced what seems not to be debated in brazil at all: how did there come to be millions of poor bolsonarists – street cleaners, delivery guys, the unemployed? right-wing populism seduced them – and the established wings of the woke left had, and still have, nothing to offer them.
addressing this problem is as serious as the destruction of brazilian engineering giants by the car wash “corruption” racket. brazil now has a huge number of well-qualified unemployed engineers. how come they have not amassed enough political organization to reclaim their jobs? why should they resign themselves to becoming uber drivers?

在问答环节中，一位来自一个非常贫穷社区的黑人提出了卢拉第三任期面临的关键挑战：为了保持稳定，并能够治理国家，他必须得到广大贫困人口的支持。这名男子说出了一个在巴西似乎完全没有争议的问题:为什么会有数百万贫穷的博尔索纳支持者？他们是街道清洁工、送货员、失业者。右翼民粹主义引诱了他们，而觉醒的左翼的老牌势力过去没有、现在仍然没有能为他们提供什么。
解决这一问题就像洗车“腐败”骗局摧毁巴西工程巨头一样严重。巴西现在有大量高素质的失业工程师。为什么他们没有积累足够的政治组织来重新获得他们的职位?为什么他们要听命于成为优步司机呢?
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


josé manuel salazar-xirinachs, the new head of the un economic commission on latin america and the caribbean (eclac), may carp about the region’s economic failure as even worse now than in the “lost decade” of the 1980s: average annual economic growth in latin america in the decade up to 2023 is set to be just 0.8%.
yet what the un is incapable of analyzing is how a plundering neoliberal regime such as bolsonaro’s managed to “elevate” to unforeseen toxic levels the dark arts of little or no investment, low productivity and less than zero emphasis on education.

联合国拉丁美洲和加勒比经济委员会(拉加经委会)的新任主席可能会抱怨该地区的经济失败甚至比上世纪80年代“失去的十年”还要糟糕：在截至2023年的十年中，拉丁美洲的平均年经济增长率将仅为0.8%。
然而，联合国无法分析的是，像博尔索纳罗这样的掠夺成性的新自由主义政权是如何成功地将投资很少或没有投资、生产率低以及对教育的重视程度低于零的黑魔法“提升”到不可预见的有毒水平的。

president dilma in da house
lula was quick to summarize brazil’s new foreign policy – which will go totally multipolar, with emphasis on increasing latin american integration, stronger ties across the global south and a push to reform the un security council (in sync with brics members russia, china and india).
mauro vieira, an able diplomat, will be the new foreign minister. but the man fine-tuning brazil on the world stage will be celso amorim, lula’s former foreign minister from 2003 to 2010.
in a conference that reunited us in sao paulo, amorim elaborated on the complexity of the world lula is now inheriting, compared with 2003. yet along with climate change the main priorities – achieving closer integration with south america, reviving unasur (the unx of south american nations) and re-approaching africa – remain the same.

卢拉很快总结了巴西的新外交政策——这将完全走向多极化，重点是加强拉丁美洲的一体化，加强全球南方的联系，推动改革联合国安理会(与金砖国家成员俄罗斯、中国和印度同步)。
毛罗·维埃拉是一位能干的外交家，他将成为新的外交部长。但在世界舞台上微调巴西的人将是卢拉2003年至2010年的前外交部长塞尔索·阿莫里姆。在圣保罗的一次会议上，阿莫里姆详细阐述了卢拉所继承的世界与2003年相比的复杂性。
然而，随着气候变化，主要的优先事项——与南美洲实现更紧密的一体化、复兴unasur(南美洲国家联盟)以及重新接近非洲，仍然没有改变。

and then there’s the holy grail: “good relations with both the us and china.”
the empire, predictably, will be on extreme close watch. us national security adviser jake sullivan dropped in to brasilia, during the fist days of the world cup soccer tournament, and was absolutely charmed by lula, who’s a master of charisma. yet the monroe doctrine always prevails. lula getting closer and closer to brics – and the expanded brics – is considered virtual anathema in washington.
so lula will play most overtly in the environment arena. covertly, it will be a sophisticated balancing act.
the combo behind us president joe biden called lula to congratulate him soon after the election results. sullivan was in brasilia setting the stage for a lula visit to washington. chinese president for his part sent him an affectionate letter, emphasizing the “global strategic partnership” between brazil and china. russian president vladimir putin called lula earlier this week – and emphasized their common strategic approach to brics.

还有一个“圣杯”是:“与美国和中国的良好关系”。
可以预见，卢拉政府将受到严密监视。美国国家安全顾问杰克·苏利文在世界杯足球赛开幕的头几天到访巴西，并被卢拉的魅力所折服。然而，门罗主义总是占上风。卢拉与金砖国家以及扩大后的金砖国家 的关系越来越密切，被华盛顿视为一种诅咒。



因此，卢拉将在环保领域发挥最公开的作用。私下里，这将是一个复杂的平衡之举。
美国总统乔·拜登背后的团队在选举结果公布后不久给卢拉打电话表示祝贺。苏利文在巴西为卢拉访问华盛顿做准备。
中国高层亲口强调巴西和中国是“全球战略伙伴关系”。俄罗斯总统普京本周早些时候打电话给卢拉，强调了他们对金砖国家的共同战略方针。

china has been brazil’s top trade partner since 2009, ahead of the us. bilateral trade in 2021 hit $135 billion. the problem is lack of diversification and focus on low added value: iron ore, soybeans, raw crude and animal protein accounted for 87.4% of exports in 2021. china exports, on the other hand, are mostly high-tech manufactured products.
brazil’s dependence on commodity exports has indeed contributed for years to its rising foreign reserves. but that implies high concentration of wealth, low taxes, low job creation and dependence on cyclical price oscillations.
there’s no question china is focused on brazilian natural resources to fuel its new development push – or “peaceful modernization,” as established by the latest party congress.
but lula will have to strive for a more equal trade balance in case he manages to restart the nation as a solid economy. in 2000, for instance, brazil’s top export item was embraer jets. now, it’s iron ore and soybeans; yet another dire indicator of the ferocious de-industrialization operated by the bolsonaro project.

自2009年以来，中国一直是巴西最大的贸易伙伴，超过了美国。2021年双边贸易额达到1350亿美元。问题在于缺乏多样化和专注于低附加值：2021年铁矿石、大豆、原油和动物蛋白占出口的87.4%。另一方面，中国出口的大多是高科技制成品。
多年来，巴西对大宗商品出口的依赖确实是其外汇储备不断增长的原因之一。但这意味着财富高度集中、税率低、创造就业机会少，并依赖于周期性价格波动。
毫无疑问，按照最近一次党代会确立的“和平现代化”，中国将重点放在巴西的自然资源上，以推动其新的发展。
但卢拉将不得不努力实现更平等的贸易平衡，以便成功地让巴西经济恢复稳定。例如，2000年，巴西最大的出口项目是巴西航空工业公司(embraer)的喷气式飞机。现在，是铁矿石和大豆；这是博尔索纳罗治下残酷去工业化的又一个可怕指标。

china is already investing substantially in the brazilian electric sector – mostly due to state companies being bought by chinese companies. that was the case in 2017 of state grid buying cpfl in sao paulo, for instance, which in turn bought a state company from southern brazil in 2021.
from lula’s point of view, that’s inadmissible: a classic case of privatization of strategic public assets.
a different scenario plays in neighboring argentina. buenos aires in february became an official partner of the new silk roads, or belt and road initiative, with at least $23 billion in new projects on the pipeline. the argentine railway system will be upgraded by – who else? – chinese companies, to the tune of $4.6 billion.
the chinese will also be investing in the largest solar energy plant in latin america, a hydroelectric plant in patagonia, and a nuclear energy plant – complete with transfer of chinese technology to the argentine state.
lula, beaming with invaluable soft power not only personally when it comes to xi but also appealing to chinese public opinion, can get similar strategic partnership deals, with even more amplitude. brasilia may follow the iranian partnership model – offering oil and gas in exchange for building critical infrastructure.

中国已经在巴西电力行业进行了大量投资，主要原因是国有企业被中国企业收购。例如，2017年国家电网收购了圣保罗的cpfl，后者又于2021年从巴西南部收购了一家国有公司。
从卢拉的角度来看，这是不可接受的：战略公共资产私有化的经典案例。
邻国阿根廷的情况则截然不同。今年2月，布宜诺斯艾利斯成为“新丝绸之路”或“一带一路”倡议的官方pg电子麻将胡了的合作伙伴，至少有230亿美元的新项目正在筹备中。阿根廷铁路系统将由谁来升级?中国公司，总额46亿美元。
中国还将投资拉美最大的太阳能发电厂、巴塔哥尼亚(patagonia)的一座水电站和一座核电站——同时还将向阿根廷政府转让中国技术。
卢拉在涉及中国时不仅个人表现出了宝贵的软实力，而且还吸引了中国的公众舆论，他可以获得类似的战略伙伴关系协议，而且幅度更大。巴西可能会效仿伊朗的伙伴关系模式——提供石油和天然气，换取建设关键基础设施。

inevitably, the golden path ahead will be via joint ventures, not mergers and acquisitions. no wonder many in rio are already dreaming of high-speed rail lixing it to sao paulo in just over an hour, instead of the current, congested highway journey of six hours (if you’re lucky).
a key role will be played by former president dilma rousseff, who had a long, leisurely lunch with a few of us in sao paulo, taking her time to recount, in minutiae, everything from the day she was officially arrested by the military dictatorship (january 16, 1970) to her off-the-record conversations with then-german chancellor angela merkel, putin, and xi.
it goes without saying that her political – and personal – capital with both xi and putin is stellar. lula offered her any post she wanted in the new government. although still a state secret, this will be part of a serious drive to polish brazil’s global profile, especially across the global south.

不可避免的是，前方的黄金道路将是通过企业合资，而不是并购。难怪里约热内卢的许多人已经梦想着有一条只需一个多小时就能连接到圣保罗的高速铁路，而不是现在拥挤的、需要6个小时的高速公路旅行 (如果你幸运的话)。
前总统迪尔玛·罗塞夫将发挥关键作用，她与我们中的一些人在圣保罗共进了一顿漫长而悠闲的午餐，花时间详细讲述了从她被军事独裁政权正式逮捕的那一天(1970年1月16日)到她与当时的德国总理安格拉·默克尔、普京、以及中国领导人举行非正式对话。
不用说，她在中国和普京身上的政治资本和个人资本都是一流的。卢拉为她提供了新政府中任何她想要的职位。尽管仍属国家机密，但这将是巴西提升全球形象的重要举措之一，尤其是在南半球国家。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


to recover from the previous, disastrous six years – which included a two-year no man’s land (2016-2018) after the impeachment of president dilma – brazil will need an unparalleled national drive of re-industrialization at virtually every level, complete with serious investment in research and development, training of specialized work forces and technology transfer.
there is a superpower that can play a crucial role in this process: china, brazil’s close partner in the expanding brics . brazil is one of the natural leaders of the global south, a role much prized by the chinese leadership.
the key now is for both partners to establish a high-level strategic dialogue – all over again. lula’s first high-profile foreign visit may be to washington. but the destination that really matters, as we watch the river of history flow, will be beijing.
pepe escobar is a brazilian journalist who has written for asia times for many years, covering events throughout asia and the middle east. he has also been an analyst for rt and sputnik news, and previously worked for al jazeera.

为了从之前灾难性的六年中恢复过来，其中包括总统罗塞夫被弹劾后的两年无政府期间(2016-2018年)，巴西将需要在几乎所有层面上进行无与伦比的再工业化，包括在研发、专业劳动力培训和技术转让方面的大量投资。
有一个超级大国可以在这一过程中发挥关键作用：中国，巴西在不断扩大的金砖国家 中的密切伙伴。巴西是全球南方的天然领导者之一，这一角色受到中国领导层的高度重视。
现在的关键是双方重新建立高级别战略对话。卢拉的第一次高调出访可能是华盛顿。但是，当我们看着历史的河流流淌时，真正重要的目的地将是中国。
作者简介：
佩佩·埃斯科瓦尔(pepe escobar)，巴西记者，多年来为《亚洲时报》撰稿，报道亚洲和中东地区的事件。他还曾担任rt和sputnik news的分析师，此前曾为半岛电视台工作。