CHINA: Lula To Kick Off China Trip With Tour Of Huawei Site

Brazil President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is due to kick off his China trip tomorrow with a tour of a Huawei facility ahead of an bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing on Friday.

• Bloomberg reports the Huawei stop, "may irk the US which alleges the technology company poses a threat to its national security," adding that the visit, "sends a message that [Lula] won’t pick sides in the US fight against the technology giant."
• Oliver Stuekel at Americas Quarterly writes that the trip is likely to deliver commercial results for Lula, contrasted with a Lula-Biden meeting in February which produced little more than pledges to safeguard democratic institutions.
• Stuekel: "In Europe, too, Lula’s trip will be used by supporters of the EU-Mercosur trade deal as an argument that the European Union must quickly lock in the agreement to put an end to the bloc’s declining political influence in the region."
• Stuekel identifies manufacturing, greater cooperation in trade facilitation, 5G/6G infrastructure, and a potential deal to sell Embraer jets to Chinese airlines as key areas to watch.