PT’s rapprochement with the Communist Party of China: risks for Brazil

A delegation from the Communist Party of China (CCP) met with representatives from the Workers’ Party (PT) last week to sign an international cooperation agreement. The parties made six commitments with the aim of “constantly deepening friendly relations”.

The rapprochement with the CCP, however, is not seen favorably by experts interviewed by the People’s Gazette. This is because the party is responsible for the authoritarian regime in China. Under the command of Xi Jinping, the Chinese autocrat has been in power for more than ten years and is accused of committing crimes against human rights, restricting the population’s access to the internet and manipulating the news published in the local press and sending religious minorities to forced labor camps.

The sources explain that it is not uncommon for parties to seek to strengthen ties with parties with similar ideology in other countries. “It’s natural for this to happen. But some issues there are a little strange”, says political scientist and Project Director at the Center for Strategy, Intelligence and International Relations, Marcelo Suano.

The political scientist draws attention to some points in the document: the PT and the CCP agree to “establish complex, multi-level and institutionalized exchanges, with the exchange of delegations at different levels to strengthen the mutual study of governance experiences. Exchange and cooperation between schools, communication departments, think-tanks and the other structures of the two parties will also be reinforced, as well as friendly contacts between mass organizations aligned with the two parties”.

For Suano, the problem can arise when co-participation between countries goes beyond the programmatic or cultural training scope. According to him, supposedly, “collaboration” could even reach strategic information, such as intelligence. “There is a risk of direct interference from China in the country […] The possibility of exchanging strategic information is very great and I would not be scared if there was an exchange of service and intelligence collaboration, as was proposed with the Venezuelan intelligence service. Having training or some intelligence service discussions is one thing, but having information exchange and joint work is an aberration”, warns the political scientist.

For him, depending on the opening that the Brazilian government gives, China could “interfere very heavily in society, politics, the Brazilian economy and in any instance of the country. Our sovereignty could be at risk.”

Around 40 people from the Communist Party of China came to Brazil last week. Li Xi, secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Communist Party of China, a senior member of the Chinese government, also met with the vice president and Minister of Development, Industry, Commerce and Services, Geraldo Alckmin, and the president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT).

Rapprochement with China

Brazil’s main trading partner, the rapprochement with China has been faithfully defended by Lula. But, in addition to the economic balance, the PT member also made statements praising the Asian giant’s policies. Last week, after meeting with Li Xi, Lula celebrated the visit of the “brother country, with which we maintain an extraordinary relationship not only from a commercial point of view, but also from a political point of view”.

For experts, the Brazilian president’s rapprochement with autocratic leaders does not give confidence to the population. “On several occasions, Lula said that he considered the Chinese Communist Party exemplary, a model party. Here we already have a situation that brings a certain discomfort to the way we think about democracy in the Western configuration”, assesses Suano.

As Vitelio Brustolin, PhD in International Relations and researcher at Harvard University, recalls, “China is a one-party country. The Communist Party of China is the founding and sole governing party of the People’s Republic of China since 1949. The Communist Party has governed that country, with exclusive control over the People’s Liberation Army.”

Having been in power for more than ten years, the Chinese autocrat presides over a government that does not count on the participation of the population and in which the representatives themselves choose their next replacements. Without the inclusion of other parties in the country’s political discussions, Brustolin draws attention to a detail involving negotiations with the PT: “An agreement with the Communist Party of China is, in practice, an agreement with the Chinese government itself.”

Xi’s China is not pragmatic and reformist, it wants to implement “21st Century Marxism”

The Workers’ Party has been trying to minimize its rapprochement with the Communist Party of China, saying that talks have been going on for years and are nothing new.

But Xi Jinping’s China is not the same as the one that has been portrayed for at least two generations by Western analysts as a country that left ideology aside to adapt to market pragmatism.

Under Hu Jintao (2002-2012) and Jiang Zemin (1987-2002), China was seen in the light of a country that made pragmatic economic reforms, allowed private enterprises, attracted foreign investment and increased individual freedoms. It was the idea of ​​”first making the cake grow and then sharing it”. At this time, Chinese communism was no longer taken seriously by many analysts.

But everything changed with Xi Jinping, who decided to “split the cake” as mandated by the Marxist-Leninist ideology of Mao Tse-Tung, the leader of the communist revolution in China (1949). In practice, he returned control of politics entirely to the Chinese Communist Party.

This also drastically increased control over society and diminished individual freedoms. The economy returned to the nationalization trend and successful businessmen began to be persecuted. Similarly, the country’s foreign policy became confrontational and Xi promised to retake Taiwan at any cost by 2049.

In other words, it is not pragmatic and reformist China that the PT is dealing with, but with the version that wants to implement what has been called by Xi as “Marxism of the 21st Century”.

Lula’s nod to dictators

Since assuming the presidency, Lula has made nods to leftist dictators, such as Nicolás Maduro, in Venezuela, and Xi Jinping himself, in China. Suano points out that, by nodding to such regimes, Lula demonstrates that the government perspectives of dictatorial countries can supposedly be considered “acceptable” – which goes in the opposite direction of the democracy that the PT member claims to defend.

In this same context, the Brazilian leader has also repeated speeches from the Chinese government, as pointed out by the columnist for People’s Gazette Leonardo Coutinho. “When Lula spoke of relative democracy in relation to the Nicolás Maduro regime in Venezuela, he was basically replicating a concept that the Chinese Communist Party had started to use, months earlier, as a way of legitimizing itself and contesting critics of the lack of freedom, the violations of human rights in China”, he points out.

“We should not expect a relationship of balance and reciprocity between Brazilians and Chinese. The tendency is for the Chinese communists to advance over the PT, influencing the party founded by Lula much more than receiving any PT contribution”, highlights Coutinho.