Yesterday’s statements by former President Dilma Rousseff elaborating why China today represents an “admirable model” have set off waves in Brazil. Rousseff is close to the currently leading presidential candidate for the 2022 elections, Lula da Silva, and her remarks will heighten the already desperate scheming by the Western financial empire to somehow head off the possibility that the 2022 presidential elections could reactivate the “B” in the BRICS in the fight for humanity.
“I believe that China represents a light in this situation of absolute decadence, of darkness, which Western societies are going through,” Rousseff stated.
“You cannot but admire a country which left behind feudalism, colonialism, of the most brutal colonial control, to become the second economy in the world and already the first in terms of purchasing power parity. Everything indicates that in this 2020 to 2030 decade, we will be able to see China becoming the largest economy in the world.”
She singled out China’s ability to control both financial crises and the pandemic.
On the first, she is reported to have referenced China’s handling of Evergrande, concluding: “China would not allow a situation like that of Lehman Brothers.”
As for its handling of the pandemic, she pointed to China’s mobilization of the powers of the government and artificial intelligence, as critical to the small number of deaths from COVID-19 in this country of 1.4 billion people.
Rousseff was speaking at an online launching of a new book on China. Folha de Sao Paulo’s much-reprinted article typifies the mainstream media coverage, its opening line characterizing its general Cold War line: “Former President Dilma Rousseff (PT) made clear this Tuesday (22) her admiration for the Chinese model for society, which is dictatorially controlled by the Communist Party.”
The book China, Socialism of the 21st Century, written by Elias Jabbour (Rio de Janeiro State University) and Alberto Gabriele (former UNCTAD economist), is reported to focus on the role of the state and the Communist Party in China’s development model.