Friday, October 25, 2019

“I’m in a Capitalist Nation,” Said Brazil’s President Bolsonaro in Communist China


“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.”
In China, Bolsonaro said his trip aims to expand trade between Brazil and China. “This is the number one priority,” he said. “Whatever we can do for the development of Brazil we will do.”
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.
With information from Istoé magazine and G1.
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