Lula participates in the G7 amid tension generated by support for Russia

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva arrived in Japan this Thursday to participate as a guest in the G7 summit, the group that brings together the main Western powers. It is the first invitation of its kind in 14 years. It comes as the United States and its allies try to forge closer ties with the “Global South” (developing countries) amid growing antagonism with Russia and China over the war in Ukraine.

About two-thirds of the world’s nations have positioned themselves as neutral in the conflict or have expressed some form of support for Russia. Brazil stood out among the countries that are “on top of the wall” after controversial statements given by Lula, in which the Brazilian president relativized Russia’s guilt in the conflict.

Lula said that Ukraine (invaded country) is as guilty of the war as Russia (invading country). In another misguided statement, he also blamed Americans and Europeans for allegedly prolonging the war by supplying arms to Ukraine. Weapons have been used for the defense of Ukrainians, not for attacking Russian territory.

The invitation to participate in the G7 summit came from the Prime Minister of Japan, Fumio Kishida. The country is hosting this year’s meeting in the city of Hiroshima. Member countries are the United States, Japan, Great Britain, Germany, France, Canada and Italy. On the agenda are the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the war in Ukraine, among other topics.

Lula can be held accountable for his pro-Russian statements and his opposition to the hegemony of the dollar as the currency of global trade. But it is not yet clear whether the G7’s policy will be to criticize the PT or offer incentives for him to move away from the bloc of dictatorial countries he has been approaching (Russia, China, North Korea, Iran and Saudi Arabia).

Secret documents leaked from the European Union have already shown that at least the Europeans are considering offering incentives for countries in the Global South (especially Brazil, Chile, Nigeria and Kazakhstan) to move away from Russia and China. One of the incentives would be to make the trade agreement between Mercosur and the European Union viable.

“It is [presença no encontro do G7 deste ano] it is an opportunity for Brazil to align itself with the countries of the West and with the great economies of the world”, said the political scientist and professor at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) Dawisson Belém Lopes.

Japan will appeal against the new global race for nuclear weapons

For the diplomat and former finance minister, Rubens Ricupero, it is interesting for the G7 that Brazil is present in this year’s discussion due to the country’s compatibility with the agendas that are being debated at the Hiroshima summit. “The choice of these invited countries is not a coincidence. Furthermore, symbolically, they represent their regions as well. Brazil, for example, will represent Latin America as it was the only invited country from the subcontinent”, he says.

Not even the choice of the host city, in the assessment of the former minister, was made by coincidence. According to him, in addition to the Japanese prime minister being a native of Hiroshima, the organizers of the event may have the intention of showing the traces caused by the atomic bomb that destroyed the city in 1945, during World War II. “It’s a symbolic choice, and with that they probably want to show all participants the danger these nuclear threats pose,” he notes.

A new nuclear age began in mid-2021, when Western satellite imagery found that China was building 120 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) silos in the Gobi Desert. Beijing has begun to stop being a small nuclear force and is preparing to reach the year 2030 with around 1,000 active warheads, according to American intelligence. This has the potential to destabilize the current binary nuclear deterrence system made up of the US and Russia.

Furthermore, the debate on nuclear weapons intensified with Russia’s threat to use tactical nuclear bombs (of lesser offensive power, but still weapons of mass destruction) in the Ukraine war.

Brazil is a signatory to the Agreement on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and may gain space in the diplomatic field as a result. G7 leaders are considering modernizing their nuclear arsenals and increasing their capabilities to respond to Russian and Chinese advances. But at the same time, they don’t want the countries of the Global South to develop nuclear bombs in the current geopolitical context that is already being called by analysts “Cold War 2.0”. Therefore, Brazil can be pointed out as an example to be followed.

To reinforce the message, the Japanese premier must take the initiative to take the heads of state and government to place flowers at the memorial to the 333,907 victims of the bomb in Hiroshima. This must take place on Saturday.

India, Australia, Indonesia and Vietnam also participate as guest countries

In addition to Brazil, seven other countries were also invited to participate in this year’s summit. They are Australia, South Korea, Vietnam, India (as president of the G20, the group of the world’s largest economies), Indonesia (as president of Asean, the association of Southeast Asian countries), Comoros (as chair of the African Union) and Cook Islands (as chair of the Pacific Islands Forum).

In addition to the heads of state or government of these nations, the leaders of the World Health Organization, the World Trade Organization MC, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) will be present.

According to Ricupero, the choice of invited countries is not made by coincidence and all represent an issue of interest to the seven member countries of the group. “The meeting does not only bring together countries that share the same economic political alignment”, he explains.

“South Korea, for example, is invited for reasons that have a lot to do with Japan. The relationship between the two countries is very close and at the same time very complicated, because of the period of Japanese occupation. South Korea was colony of Japan and it is only now that there has been an improvement in relations”, details the former minister.

Furthermore, the group’s concern with the proliferation of nuclear weapons is also one of the factors in inviting the country’s representative to attend the summit. “[Causa preocupação] North Korea’s atomic program, so it would be strange not to invite South Korea to this meeting,” says Ricupero.

India is aligned with important G7 countries in addition to bordering China. “It is a very important country, India is part of what is called the Indo-Pacific, a quadrilateral group formed by the United States, Japan and Australia which, despite not being an alliance, is a more or less aligned group to contain the China,” he points out.

“The only African country is Comoros. It’s a small one, but it was invited due to its active struggle on the climate agenda and for its presidency of the African Union”, says the former minister, who has already participated in a G7 summit. “As for the Cook Islands, they are president of the Union of the Pacific, which is an organization of the Pacific islands and, for Japan, this is important”, says Ricupero.

War in Ukraine and Chinese threat to Taiwan set to dominate debates

The formation of a partnership between Russia, China, North Korea, Iran and Saudi Arabia following the Russian invasion of Ukraine should be the most prominent theme in the debates at the G7 summit.

Lula arrives in the country already involved in a “tight skirt” provoked by his own controversial statements. In an interview he gave during a brief visit to the United Arab Emirates, last month, Lula said: “I think that the construction of the war was easier than the exit from the war will be. Because the war decision was taken by two countries [Rússia e Ucrânia]”.

The phrase is wrong because Russia invaded Ukraine without being attacked. The war is the result of an expansionist Kremlin policy that violates the precept of the UN Charter that states that countries cannot annex territories by force.

Lula even sent his special advisor, Celso Amorim, to Ukraine to meet with President Volodymyr Zelensky and thus try to ease tensions with the West. But at least in the statements made public, Amorim only repeated the controversial lines of his boss.

“In this kind of pendular diplomacy between Russia and Ukraine, the most recent movements were in the direction of the West, from nods to Ukraine, to block or to try to compensate movements that were interpreted as pro-Russia and pro-China”, evaluates Lopes, one of the political analysts interviewed by the report.

But the Ukrainians asked Lula to prove that he is really willing to review his controversial positions by authorizing the sale of Brazilian armored ambulances to be used for humanitarian purposes in the conflict. But Itamaraty remains on the fence.

Instead of taking concrete steps, the Brazilian president has been insisting on what he calls the “Peace Club”, which would be an attempt to mediate the end of the war. But Lula has already stated that he has no defined plan to deal with the conflict.

Lula should target diplomatic efforts at the climate conference in 2025

Since he was elected president for his third term, Lula has offered to host the COP30, the global conference on the climate, scheduled to take place in 2025. Brazil wants to host the event, in the city of Belém, in Pará, and that is why Itamaraty should start lobbying in that direction at the G7 meeting.

Ricupero analyzes that the president should use his presence at this weekend’s G7 summit to show his “window” and make concrete the holding of the biggest climate event in the world in Brazil in 2025. “This could be a good forum for him to get support for manage to bring the event to Belém”, assesses the former minister.

Analysts believe that the only aspect in which Brazil can exercise some kind of protagonism abroad is that of environmental preservation.

Recently, the United States and England announced millionaire donations to the Amazon Fund. President Joe Biden announced that the country would donate US$ 500 million – about R$ 2.5 billion – over five years to the project. At the beginning of May, during Lula’s presence in England for the coronation of King Charles, the British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, announced that he would donate 80 million pounds – approximately R$ 499 million – to the project.

What will Lula’s agenda be like in Japan

Lula and his entourage arrived in Japan this Thursday afternoon. The panel discussions and official events of the G7 summit are scheduled to take place between the 19th and 21st of May, from Friday to Sunday.

In addition to the summit’s agenda, Lula will participate in bilateral talks with the heads of government and state of Japan, Germany, India, Indonesia, Australia and with the UN secretary general, Antônio Guterres. The president is expected to return to Brazil on Tuesday (23).

According to analyst Lopes, Lula will have the opportunity to explain the conduct of Brazilian economic policy. According to the political scientist, the occasion is important to clarify some topics and align expectations between economies. But on previous trips, Lula prioritized attacks on former president Jair Bolsonaro over exposing his plans for Brazil.

What is the G7?

The acronym G7 is an abbreviation for Group of Seven, an organization that brings together the leaders of the most industrialized countries in the world, currently includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom and the United States. The group met for the first time in 1975 and, when it appeared, had the participation of five countries.

Russia was also included in the well-known G8, but was banned from the organization in 2014, when most members opposed the country’s idea of ​​annexing Crimea to its territory. This was the first breach of a European country’s borders since World War II. The group, however, meets annually to discuss the global economy, issues of urgency, international security, as well as policy coordination.