Lula da Silva opened his July 22 press conference with foreign journalists after the G20 Finance Ministers meeting in Brazil, by discussing his number-one international concern: eliminating world hunger and poverty. Brazil chairs the G20 this year, and is organizing to launch a “Global Alliance against Hunger” during November’s G20 summit. “Hunger is not a phenomenon of nature. Poverty is a phenomenon of human behavior, that is, of political leaders,” he stated. No one country can fight against inequality, hunger, poverty, alone; it is a historic responsibility for all the countries to take on together.
The first question asked came from Xinhua’s Chen Weihua, who asked the Brazilian President to speak about how he sees the next 50 years of Brazilian relations with the P.R.C., and how the Global South, and China and Brazil, can cooperate to promote discussions of hunger, peace and development.
When Xi Jinping visits Brazil in November, we will have a “big party” to celebrate 50 years of diplomatic and commercial relations with China, and discuss a new strategic partnership between Brazil and China, not based on just exporting commodities, but discussing science, technology, chip production and software, Lula responded. He elaborated at length:
“China’s growth is undeniable … no one can fail to recognize what China has done in the last 30 years and 40 years in the world. So China is a partner that we will always take into account, always have a privileged relationship with, because it is of strategic interest to China and of strategic interest to Brazil. And also because we are against a new Cold War … we want there to be commercial freedom, diplomatic freedom between countries and we don’t want anyone trying to control other countries.”
He pointed to the dramatic change in China’s economy from producing low-cost goods, to today. “What did China do? China learned how to make. China trained millions of engineers, millions of specialists and China began to produce better than the countries that owned the companies there…. Brazil can learn from China. How did China manage to make the leap in quality that it did in trade in such a short space of time?
