Brazil-China ties strained by social media war over coronavirus

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Brazil-China ties strained by social media war over coronavirus
Officials’ barbs come at a precarious time for Latin American country

The Chinese embassy in Brasília has adopted an unorthodox approach to social media diplomacy: its envoys have been publicising their meetings not with Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, but with some of his political rivals, including the health minister he recently sacked.

Since last month, the embassy has been waging a social media war with Mr Bolsonaro after some of his closest aides, including his influential son Eduardo Bolsonaro, publicly blamed China for the global spread of coronavirus.

The spat has triggered concerns about Brazil’s economic relationship with China, its largest trading partner, as the Latin American country enters a recession, and as it seeks to procure critical medical supplies for the fight against Covid-19.

 

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Last week, anti-China banners with the face of President Xi Jinping reading “China Lied, People Died” and “China Virus” popped up in Brasília.

“It has already damaged relations,” said a senior diplomat. “The Chinese have already voiced concerns and signalled that if [tensions] continue the damage could be more tangible. These messages have already been sent.”

The stand off between the envoys and Mr Bolsonaro’s inner circle began last month when Eduardo Bolsonaro — a federal lawmaker and top foreign policy adviser — said in a tweet that the spread of the virus was “China’s fault”.

The Chinese embassy in Brasília countered swiftly, saying that “your words are extremely irresponsible and sound familiar”, in reference to similar assertions about the virus’s origin made by US president Donald Trump, a close ally of the Bolsonaro administration.

It added that Eduardo Bolsonaro may have caught a “mental virus that is infecting” Brazil-China relations while he and his father were visiting Mr Trump in Florida last month.

Yang Wanming, China’s ambassador to Brazil, then intervened, sharing an embassy post that accused the younger Bolsonaro of being “without international vision or common sense”. In a note, Ernesto Araújo, Brazilian foreign minister, expressed the government’s dissatisfaction with Mr Yang’s behaviour. A source close to the Bolsonaro family called the ambassador’s reaction “virulent [and] over the top”.

Abraham Weintraub, Brazil’s education minister and a close Bolsonaro ally, replied by suggesting China might gain from the coronavirus in a “plan for world domination”.

In the tweet, which was later removed, the minister referenced a Brazilian cartoon character with a speech impediment, replacing all the letter Rs with Ls in an attempt to mock Chinese phonetics. The move was decried by the embassy as racist.

“That is not the view of the political establishment nor that of the business elite,” said a senior Brazilian diplomat

 

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The COVID-19 pandemic has put renewed pressure on Brazil's relationship with China, its largest trading partner and the world's main producer of medical supplies, underscoring deep fault lines in Bolsonaro's government.

 

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China Lied, People Died” and “China Virus

 

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China will want to drive a wedge between Brazil and the United States, or at the very least, use Brazil as an alternative to the U.S. for energy and food supply.