Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to Brazil is his first state visit to the South American country since taking office. The visit is taking special importance, as 2014 marks the 40th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Brazil. Bilateral ties in all fields have been developing constantly over the past four decades.
China and Brazil, the largest developing countries in their respective hemisphere.
Despite the distance, China and Brazil ties have grown remarkably closer since the two countries established diplomatic ties in 1974.
China and Brazil have strengthened their political ties when they established a strategic partnership in 1993...which was promoted to a comprehensive strategic partnership in 2012.
The two countries also set up a comprehensive ministerial-level strategic dialogue mechanism and signed a ten-year cooperation plan in 2012.
The two countries have also promoted the confidence of developing countries to participate in global affairs.
Economically, there has been a natural symmetry between China’s export focused, industrial economy and Brazil’s economy which is primarily an industrial commodities provider.
Trade flows between the two countries rose to over 90 billion US dollars in 2013, making them the biggest partners within the member nations of BRICS.
Since 2009, China has replaced the US as Brazil’s main trading partner.
Likewise, Brazil is China’s largest trading partner in Latin America and a key destination of Chinese foreign direct investment.
Yet cooperation between the two countries has gone well beyond trade and politics. It’s also encompassing areas such as language teaching and learning .5 Confucius Institutes have been established in Brazil since 2008.
Many say these interactions will bring China and Brazil, which are geographically distant and culturally distinct, even closer in the future.