President Lula’s recent decision to station Brazilian general officers permanently in Beijing marks a potential inflection point in Brazil’s defense partnerships, one that could jeopardize billions of dollars in established defense industrial relationships and undermine decades of successful technology transfer programs.
While proponents frame this as a move toward “strategic autonomy,” a closer examination reveals troubling parallels to colonial-era relationships that could subordinate Brazil to Chinese interests while simultaneously destroying the most successful defense partnerships in Latin American history.
The Risk to Established Strategic Partnerships
Brazil’s current defense industrial landscape represents one of the most sophisticated technology transfer arrangements achieved by any developing nation. The Swedish partnership, centered on the $4.7 billion Gripen program, has delivered genuine industrial capabilities including final assembly at Embraer’s facilities, transfer of critical radar and electronic warfare technologies, and access to software source codes. Similarly, the French partnership has produced the $10+ billion submarine program with Naval Group, including four conventional Scorpène-class submarines, one nuclear-powered submarine, and comprehensive naval technology transfer at the Itaguaí Naval Complex.
These relationships represent far more than arms purchases. They constitute foundational investments in Brazil’s defense industrial base. The Swedish arrangement alone has created thousands of high-skilled jobs and positioned Brazil as a potential Gripen export hub for Latin America. The French submarine program has established Brazil as one of only a handful of nations with nuclear submarine capabilities, a strategic asset of immeasurable value.
President Lula’s apparent pivot toward China places all of this at risk. Unlike the transparent, democratic partnerships with Sweden and France for both nations have robust legislative oversight and shared democratic values, Chinese military cooperation operates under fundamentally different principles that could compromise Brazil’s existing relationships.
The Illusion of Diversification
The narrative surrounding Brazil’s military rapprochement with China emphasizes diversification and reduced dependence on traditional Western partners. The promise of Chinese VT-4 tanks, J-10 fighter jets, and advanced artillery systems appears to offer strategic options and technological advancement.
However, this framing obscures a fundamental reality: Brazil would not be achieving independence through diversification, but potentially abandoning its most successful defense partnerships for a relationship that exhibits classic characteristics of technological dependence.
Brazil’s economic relationship with China already demonstrates concerning patterns. China purchases Brazilian soybeans, iron ore, and crude oil while exporting manufactured goods and technology—a classic center-periphery relationship that has “primarized” Brazil’s economy. Military cooperation threatens to extend this subordinate dynamic into the security realm, potentially undermining the genuine technology transfer and industrial development achieved through European partnerships.
From Industrial Partnership to Technological Dependence
The contrast between Brazil’s existing European partnerships and potential Chinese cooperation is stark. Swedish and French arrangements have prioritized:
- Technology Transfer: Genuine transfer of manufacturing capabilities, software source codes, and technical expertise that builds Brazilian industrial capacity.
- Local Production: Final assembly and increasingly sophisticated manufacturing within Brazil, creating jobs and export potential.
- Democratic Oversight: Partnerships between democracies with transparent legislative processes and public accountability.
- Strategic Independence: Agreements that enhance Brazil’s capabilities without creating political dependencies.
Chinese military cooperation, by contrast, typically involves:
- Technology Dependence: Equipment requiring ongoing Chinese maintenance, spare parts, and upgrades, creating lasting vulnerabilities.
- Limited Transfer: Minimal genuine technology transfer, maintaining Chinese control over critical capabilities.
- Opaque Processes: Authoritarian decision-making without meaningful public scrutiny or legislative oversight.
- Political Leverage: Military dependencies that can be leveraged for broader geopolitical influence.
The Democratic Governance Challenge
Perhaps most concerning is how a Chinese pivot could undermine the governance frameworks that made Brazil’s European partnerships successful. The Gripen and submarine programs succeeded precisely because they operated within democratic oversight structures, with legislative approval, public debate, and transparent decision-making processes.
The decision to station Brazilian generals permanently in Beijing appears to have bypassed these crucial democratic safeguards. When Brazilian military officers become embedded in Chinese institutional structures, they risk absorbing different assumptions about civil-military relations, strategic priorities, and acceptable levels of public accountability—precisely the kind of institutional influence that could compromise Brazil’s democratic governance of defense policy.
Strategic Costs of Abandoning Proven Partnerships
A Chinese pivot would exact immediate strategic costs:
- Sunk Investment Losses: Billions invested in Swedish and French programs could become stranded assets if Brazil pivots to incompatible Chinese systems.
- Industrial Capacity: The manufacturing capabilities developed through European partnerships—from Gripen final assembly to submarine construction—could become obsolete.
- Export Potential: Brazil’s emerging role as a defense exporter, particularly for Gripen aircraft to other Latin American nations, would be jeopardized.
- Alliance Relationships: Brazil’s status as a democratic partner and potential NATO ally would be compromised, limiting access to Western defense technologies and intelligence sharing.
- Technological Autonomy: Rather than building on the industrial base created through European partnerships, Brazil would become dependent on Chinese systems and support structures.
The Path Forward
Brazil’s frustrations with some aspects of its defense relationships are understandable, but the solution lies in building on successful partnerships rather than abandoning them for untested alternatives.
True strategic autonomy should involve:
- Leveraging Existing Capabilities: Using the industrial base built through Swedish and French partnerships as a foundation for further indigenous development.
- Expanding Proven Partnerships: Deepening cooperation with European partners while maintaining the democratic oversight and technology transfer principles that made these relationships successful.
- Selective Engagement: Limited cooperation with China in areas that don’t compromise existing partnerships or democratic governance principles.
- Indigenous Development: Using transferred European technologies as stepping stones toward genuinely Brazilian defense capabilities.
- Regional Leadership: Leveraging Brazil’s position as Latin America’s most successful defense technology recipient to become a regional hub for democratic defense cooperation.
Brazil stands at a crossroads. It can build on the most successful defense industrial partnerships in Latin American history, relationships that have delivered genuine technology transfer, industrial capabilities, and strategic autonomy or it can abandon these proven successes for the uncertain promise of Chinese cooperation.
The permanent stationing of Brazilian generals in Beijing may mark a historic moment, but history suggests that Brazil’s greatest strategic successes have come through partnerships with democratic allies committed to genuine technology transfer and shared governance principles.
The choice facing Brazil is not simply between different suppliers, but between building on demonstrated success or starting over with a partner whose approach to international relationships has consistently prioritized Chinese interests over genuine partnership. Brazil’s size, resources, and democratic institutions position it to be a truly independent actor but only if it recognizes that strategic autonomy comes from building on strength, not abandoning it.
The Swedish and French partnerships represent that strength. The question is whether Brazil will build on this foundation or squander it in pursuit of an illusion of diversification that could leave it more dependent than ever.
Note: The Brazilian decision is highlighted here:
Also, see the following:
Is There a Military Pivot to China Underway by President Lula’s Brazil?
Chinese defence giant moves to acquire 49 percent of Brazil’s Avibras Aeroespacial
https://macaonews.org/news/lusofonia/china-norinco-brazil-avibras-aeroespacial/