Chinese soft power in Latin America, new chapter. In the now former "garden" of the United States, Beijing's hand is increasingly heavy: come on business relations, in particular with Brazil which is the first partner worldwide, to investments in strategic infrastructure (energy raw materials, nuclear power plants), fromindustry and technology (electric cars, microchips), up to Space. After the news of a joint satellite between China and Brazil, the partnership between the two countries was enriched a few days ago with a new, not at all banal, asset: the aerospace defense.
Aerospace defense: China makes purchases in Brazil
The Chinese state-owned company Norinco ((China North Industries Corporation) has in fact made a request to the Brazilian authorities to acquire 49% of the shares of Avibras Aeroespacial, the main company of heavy air defense systems in the Latin American country.
Avibras, which is at risk of bankruptcy, had already ended up in the sights of the Australian DefendTex, but President Lula's neutral position on the Russian-Ukrainian conflict had stalled the negotiation, given that the company also produces rockets and potentially offensive military products which they could have been exported to Kiev.
An affair that annoys the United States
Norinco has not officially confirmed the deal, which however was leaked to the Brazilian press by some officials of the Ministry of Defense. If Lula avoided arming Ukraine so as not to burn the intense commercial and strategic relations with it Russia of Vladimir Putin, this new negotiation could however annoy even more so States Uniti, with whom Brazil is allied in international summits but which see the South American giant moving further and further away from the Western axis in favor of the so-called "new world order", of the "Global South" made up of the former emerging countries which has reference the Russia-China-India axis.
Norinco is in fact a giant of the arms industry but not only that: it exports anti-air defense systems, armored vehicles, aerial bombs but also produces vehicles, chemical products, and is engaged in the civil construction sector. And it is a particularly real reality hostile to the USA, given that in 2019 it was Norinco who announced the production of the “mother of all bombs”, a lethal device that was supposed to be the Chinese response to the GBU-43/B used by the Pentagon in Afghanistan in 2002, a weapon weighing over 10 tons containing 8.000 kilograms of explosives.
Devastating geopolitical consequences
That's why the Brazilian diplomacy is very cautiously evaluating an operation that could have a devastating geopolitical impact, that is, to help arm Beijing in its military challenge to the USA, after having refused to send weapons to Ukraine. From this point of view, the formula of a 49% transfer would still leave control to the Brazilian state. Avibras, in the midst of the financial crisis (it has 150 million euros in debt and in 2022 it immediately fired a third of its employees), produces the main air defense system used by the Brazilian Army, with tactical missiles capable of hitting 300 km away. Its dismantling would be a serious blow to national security, but even clearing such an explicit link with a Chinese company must be assessed with extreme caution. Alternatively there would be entry into the capital, with debt coverage, of BNDES (Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social), a sort of Brazilian Deposit and Loan Fund.