“I’m in a Capitalist Nation,” Said Brazil’s President Bolsonaro in Communist China
By
Julio
Severo
In
the month when the People’s Republic of China celebrated the 70th anniversary
of its communist revolution (October 2019), Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro
gave a compliment in Beijing: He called China a “capitalist nation.”
Asked
about the concern of his perplexed right-wing voters about his presence in a
radically communist country, he replied, “I’m in a capitalist nation.”
During
the 2018 Brazilian presidential election campaign, Bolsonaro embraced a fiery
rhetoric against China, even saying that Chinese communists were “buying
Brazil.”
Today
the tone is different. In China, Bolsonaro gave a gift to the Chinese: He
promised to exempt Chinese of business and tourism visa — the same gift he had
already given to the United States, Australia, Canada, and Japan. This way he elevated,
in words and acts, China to the category of privileged capitalist countries.
But none of these countries exempted Brazilians from visas.
Bolsonaro’s
trip to China was not the first contact of his administration with the
communist Chinese. One of the first moves after
Bolsonaro’s inauguration on January 2019 was a trip of congressmen of his party
to China. The purpose of their trip was to
get a closer look at the facial recognition and surveillance system and to
achieve a partnership with Chinese communists to bring this technology to
Brazil.
Perhaps
their idea was: If Chinese communists can make use of capitalism to advance
communism, why can’t Brazilian right-wingers make use of communist surveillance
technology to advance the right?
There
are two main conservative concerns about Bolsonaro’s trip to China:
1.
Persecution of Christians. Christians submitting to the Chinese communist state
attend Catholic and Protestant churches where communism is above the Bible.
Christians who put Jesus above communism are persecuted, tortured and sent to labor
camps. Many are killed after torture. And there are reports that the Chinese
communist government removes organs from labor camp prisoners.
2.
Business with the Chinese government directly strengthens Chinese communism,
which is forming and equipping the largest communist army in the world. Chinese
“capitalism” is a capitalism wholly in the service of Chinese communism.
Bolsonaro’s
lack of concern about Chinese communism contrasts sharply with his excessive
concern about Venezuelan socialism. The persecution of Chinese communism against
Christians is vastly greater than the persecution of Venezuelan socialism against
Christians. The basic difference is that Chinese communism is a multibillion-dollar
business and “capitalist,” as pointed out by Bolsonaro, while Venezuelan
socialism is poor.
Bolsonaro’s
concern has been São Paulo Forum (Foro de São Paulo), a group of poor socialist
countries led by two poor countries: Cuba and Venezuela. No member of the Sao
Paulo Forum has a large army and nuclear weapons.
In
contrast, China has the largest communist army in the world and many nuclear
weapons.
Although
Bolsonaro is known for speaking outright against communism, he has avoided
talking about persecuted Christians in China or about Chinese labor camps.
Does
treating communist China as “capitalist” help to disguise or diminish the
crimes of communism against Christians?
Bolsonaro
was led to treat São Paulo Forum as the biggest communist threat under the
influence of Olavo de Carvalho, considered his Rasputin,
who also spreads the idea that smoking does no harm and that the Inquisition, which tortured and
killed Jews and Protestants, was a victim of “lying” campaigns by American
evangelicals. For him, the
Inquisition was a court that promoted human rights.
It
is not known who led Bolsonaro to treat communist China as a “capitalist” nation.
Portuguese version of this article: “Estou
em um país capitalista,” disse Bolsonaro na China comunista
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Reading:
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Right-Wing Statism
How the Powerful Union of Trump with
Evangelicals Saved the U.S. from Steve Bannon and His Occult Plan of a
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