Brazil: dances with the dragon

By the time professor Shiu arrived in Brazil, Maoists could be found within the Chinese students. The police would show up every now and then as Brazil was ruled by an anti-communist military regime. Now businessmen, physicians, and a new wave of addicted-to-China students make up a very heterogeneous group of classmates.

This China mania was positive for the Chinese community in São Paulo. Being for so long dispersed in a sea of Japanese - São Paulo is the only cosmopolitan city that is known for not having a Chinatown - now the Chinese population recovered its self-esteem and started once again to celebrate its New Year.

Although people of Japanese extraction may be more prominent, the China connection with Brazil, once a colony of the Portuguese crown, goes back to the 17th century - long before the Japanese appeared on the scene. Portuguese traders introduced, mostly from China, sun hats, fans, porcelain, silk cover beds, Asian roof styles and fireworks to Brazil. Gilberto Freyre, one of the most distinguished Brazilian sociologists, found in the sugarcane civilisation, the tea being served with sugar in Chinese porcelain. According to his poetic depiction, the Asian goods - used by the rural aristocracy - brought alongside a model of family and society that resembled the hierarchical and patriarchal patterns being shaped in colonial Brazil.

Chinese immigration in Brazil started after World War II. Up to then, not even waves of immigration were seen: just some bubbles, like the 400 families that were brought to Rio de Janeiro outskirts by the Portuguese emperor in 1814 to produce tea. In the Brazilian Census of 1940, 646 Chinese immigrants were counted.

Today, the figures are much higher. Most of the Chinese live in and around the city of São Paulo, working mainly at the retail sector. Some are petty entrepreneurs trying to get a better opportunity. They benefit from the informal networks built up by the Chinese overseas community. Others face a perverse globalisation enacted by mafias spread out all over the world. They are the indentured servants of our times.

One may have an idea of the number of Chinese illegal immigrants in Brazil through the data collected by the Federal Police, which, since this August, granted amnesty to those already in Brazil and without permits. The Chinese population is responsible for the second highest demand for Brazilian residency, after the Bolivians, reaching almost 5,000 people.

China’s presence in the Brazilian media is full of swings. Last year, the Asian power was flooding the country’s internal market with industrial goods. Right now, China helps the country’s economic recovery through its strong demand of imports. President Lula should foster a partnership that goes much beyond this. However, the policy of diversifying the range of political allies - the recent visit of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Brazil is another signal of this new attitude - must be embedded in a much stronger economy, capable of simultaneously enlarging its internal market and meeting the Chinese challenge at home and abroad.