The hostility between the two world superpowers, the United States and China, still leaves some room for cooperation, or at least closeness, even in an area as sensitive as military affairs. Dozens of American and Chinese soldiers, specifically naval riflemen, are participating alongside 3,000 Brazilian soldiers in maneuvers that are taking place in central Brazil, in the municipality of Formosa, 80 kilometers from Brasilia, and will end on the 17th. Brazil is a propitious terrain for such a meeting because it is a regional power, has a pragmatic foreign policy – which avoids antagonisms and prioritizes dialogue and cooperation – and Beijing and Washington are, respectively, its first and second commercial partners.
Obviously, the Brazilian hosts provide the bulk of the troops for the maneuvers that mobilize planes, tanks, armored vehicles, amphibious vehicles and missile launchers. They are followed at a distance by the two superpowers. The US delegation has 56 soldiers, while the Chinese delegation has 33 riflemen, according to the report. Folha de S.Paulo.But as a sign of the wide and varied cast of friendly countries that Brazil has historically had, uniformed personnel from Mexico, South Africa, Argentina, Italy, Pakistan, the Republic of Congo, France and Nigeria also participate, although in more modest numbers. Last year, China only sent military observers to these exercises, not soldiers, as on this occasion, the Navy reported. That is what is new.
With moves like this, Brazil is emphasizing the traditional stance of its foreign policy, which Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has expanded from the presidency with the help of his long-time advisor on international affairs, Celso Amorim. The presence of these soldiers is due to “the place that Brazil wants to occupy in the world,” explains the international relations analyst Pedro Costa Júnior, from USP (the University of São Paulo). “Brazil wants to be a mediator in the international system, to mediate between the South and the North, and between those antagonistic universes of geopolitics that are Eurasia, led by China and Russia, and the Atlanticist bloc, led by the United States and Europe.”
The US Embassy in Brasilia welcomed the maneuvers in a statement in which, without mentioning the presence of Chinese or other military personnel, it praised the cooperation with Brazil and the two centuries of bilateral relations. It detailed the issues on which this edition focuses: “Improving interoperability, preparation and mutual understanding between two forces, including the Brazilian Air Force and the Army, training the rapid reaction force, verifying expeditionary capabilities and coordinating the firing of all their weapons.” The statement added that Brasilia and Washington maintain “a long-standing and multifaceted security cooperation (…) important in promoting regional stability” and to address common challenges in the West.
The maneuvers, called Operation Formosa 2024, are taking place inland, although they are organized by the Navy. They began on the 7th in Rio de Janeiro, when the troops set out on a 1,400-kilometer journey to the heart of the territory with the necessary equipment to set up an expeditionary base.
Eduardo Heleno, a professor at the Institute of Strategic Studies at the Fluminense Federal University, points to Brazil’s growing interest in increasing military collaboration with Beijing. Army commander General Tomás Paiva explained in June, in an interview before a trip to Beijing, that the goal was to raise cooperation between the Armed Forces of both countries from the current level, focused on the academic field (training of officers and cadets), to the defense industry and the area of science and technology applied to military affairs, “an area in which they are advanced,” he told the newspaper. Stadium.
The general also revealed that he had instructions from the Lula government to strengthen ties with the BRICS countries, except for Russia, because of the war in Ukraine. That is, with China, India and South Africa. The specialist Heleno suggests that the unprecedented Sino-American military collaboration on Brazilian territory perhaps arose at an international naval rifle meeting held in Rio last November, attended by, among others, General David Bello, for the US, and Admiral Zhu Chuansheng, for China.
This military expert points out that “the irony of fate is that these manoeuvres are taking place in a training camp called Formosa, like the city where it is located, and the name that Portuguese navigators gave to the island of Taiwan.” There, on the other side of the world, the armed forces of the two superpowers have had their most serious clashes in recent times around the disputed territory.
Already in 1947, at the height of the Cold War, Brazil was considered a friendly and important enough country for its peers at the UN to grant it the honour of opening the round of speeches by heads of state at the annual General Assembly. Following that tradition, Lula will in a few days be the first head of state to take the floor in New York.
Reflecting Brazil’s diplomatic ambition, its capital is home to embassies from almost every country on the planet. This week, veteran diplomat Amorim, an advisor to Lula, is visiting Russia for a BRICS summit while Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira is visiting Gulf countries. Both diplomats have been trying for weeks, along with Colombia and Mexico, to find a peaceful solution in Venezuela. So far, without success.
