Screenshot of the tweet of Rodrigo Maia, President of the Chamber of Deputies of Brazil, on Thursday.

 Chinese Embassy in Brazil has protested against the stigmatizing of China by Brazilian Federal Deputy Eduardo Bolsonaro, son of President Jair Bolsonaro, urging him to withdraw the insults and apologize. 

Eduardo Bolsonaro sparked a diplomatic crisis on Wednesday by groundlessly blaming the Chinese "dictatorship" for the spread of the coronavirus, following US President Donald Trump's "Chinese virus" tweet.

Yang Wanming, the Chinese ambassador to Brazil, responded angrily on Twitter, urging the younger Bolsonaro to withdraw the "malicious insult" immediately and apologize to the Chinese people. In a separate tweet, the Chinese Embassy in Brazil said Thursday: "You are just repeating others' words. You recently went to Miami and brought back the 'virus of thought' which poisoned the friendship between China and Brazil."  

 "On behalf of the Chamber of Deputies, I apologize to China and [Chinese] Ambassador Yang Wanming for the thoughtless words of Congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro," Rodrigo Maia, President of the Chamber of Deputies of Brazil, said in a tweet on Thursday.

"The attitude does not match the importance of the Brazil-China strategic partnership and the diplomatic ties. On behalf of my colleagues, I reiterate the bonds of brotherhood between our two countries. I hope that soon we can come out of the current crisis even stronger," Maia added.  

The Brazilian Embassy in China, reached by the Global Times on Thursday, made no comment on the issue.

Zhou Zhiwei, a senior researcher on Latin American studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said although a lot of people and politicians advocate closer ties with China, the current far-right populist government of Brazil has a strong ideological preference in its diplomacy, which led to its narrow and politicized understanding of the pandemic and China.

"The current Brazilian government is a close follower of the Trump government ideologically, but they are opportunistic and a double dealer in terms of cooperation in the field of economy and trade with China," Zhou said.

China wants a good relationship with Brazil, especially in trade and economy, but maintaining a mutual respect political atmosphere is a prerequisite, Zhou said, adding that anti-China politicians need to face the reality that Brazil's economic ties with China are even more important than those with the US. The Brazilian economy authority said Chinese companies have expanded their investment in Brazil in agriculture, mining, telecommunications, financial services and electricity, as well as the digital economy. 

Chinese companies' direct investment in Brazil last year was close to $100 billion, making China the second largest source of foreign direct investment in Brazil.




Newspaper headline: Stigmatizing of China ‘harms cooperation’