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Refreshing trade ties and seeking new investment have turned out to be the highlight of Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's state visit to China this week. Less than two months after the meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden at the White House, Lula's China trip – with a large delegation that includes 240 business leaders – demonstrates Brazil chooses multi-win cooperation over geopolitical confrontation.

Brazil under Lula keeps a flexible and pragmatic position in building ties with Beijing. Despite pressure from Washington, Lula visited a research center of China's tech giant Huawei and met the head of the country's biggest electronic carmaker BYD on Thursday. Earlier, Washington added Huawei to its Entity List, accusing the company – that it views as a rival to its technological hegemony – as a national security threat, and thus Lula's Huawei visit "may irk the U.S.," as Bloomberg reported.

Lula's Huawei trip demonstrates that the country won't pick side in China-U.S. technological fight. "We want to have good and close relations with everyone, everywhere," Brazil's Foreign Affairs Minister Mauro Vieira said in a press briefing ahead of Lula's China trip, adding that "If the president visits other countries, he'll likely visit other companies." Amid Washington's pressures, Lula's high-profile Huawei visit shows the country is prioritizing its national interests over the need to court the United States.

Since assuming office, Lula has been seeking to reposition his country as a key player on the global arena, and intensify cooperative ties with the world's second largest economy is essential. China replaced the U.S. as Brazil's largest trading partner in 2019. It is also the country's biggest export market, buying tens of billions of dollars worth of beef, soybeans and iron ore.

To further sustain its economy, Brazil has been seeking to diversify trade with China beyond meat and soy exports. Visiting Huawei is a chance to deepen communications on 5G and can help boost Brazil's development in research and innovation. Brazil is the largest recipient of Chinese investment in Latin America, according to Reuters. By 2021, Chinese firms' investment in Brazil recovered to the level of 2017 and forecasts steady growth. Against this backdrop, visiting Huawei-represented Chinese companies can help diversify Brazil's trade with, and attract future innovation investments from the world's second largest economy – which is in the long-term interests of Brazil.

Lula travels to China "with hopes for trade and peace," CNN reported. Brazil wants development. While the U.S. was shouting empty slogans and pressuring other countries to pick sides for its selfish geopolitical gains, China has been committed to enhancing multilateral cooperation with concrete actions. China-Brazil under BRICS mechanism has witnessed great progress in recent years. Apart from intensified trade, China and Brazil have cleared the way for yuan settlement as the alternative to U.S. dollar.

In the era of global integration, an increasing number of countries have made the right choice between multi-win cooperation and zero-sum geopolitical confrontation. China-proposed initiatives have turned out to be effective in boosting peace and development. The share of BRICS countries on their purchasing power parity increased from 10.66 percent of global GDP in 1982 to 31.59 percent in 2022, while the share of GDP of G7 nations is declining during the same period, according to media reports. Iran, Algeria, and Argentina have also made applications to join the BRICS.

Lula stressed the importance of Brazil-China cooperation during his state visit to China this week. "Friendship is like a bottle of wine, the older, the better," Lula, quoting a Brazilian proverb, spoke highly of the bilateral ties between the two countries. Cooperation is the only way forward. Brazil and many other countries have the wisdom to choose the right path that best serves their national interests.

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