Lula to Visit Huawei Site in Shanghai, Potentially Irking US

Simone Iglesias
Updated ·2 min read
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(Bloomberg) -- President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s trip to China will include a tour of Huawei’s innovation center in Shanghai, a stop that may irk the US which alleges the technology company poses a threat to its national security.

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The Brazilian leader will visit Huawei Technologies Co.’s site on Thursday, two people familiar with the plan said, requesting anonymity as his full schedule hasn’t been published yet. His trip to China, which includes a bilateral with President Xi Jinping in Beijing on Friday, was delayed by a couple of weeks after Lula had a mild case of pneumonia late last month.

The trip, which comes a little more than a month after Lula visited Joe Biden in the US, shows the importance given by the leftist leader to both countries, which rank as Brazil’s two largest trading partners. His visit to Huawei sends a message that he won’t pick sides in the US fight against the technology giant.

Read More: Biden, Lula Put On Pro-Democracy Show Under Bolsonaro’s Shadow

Lula’s presence in China follows a similar trip by France’s Emmanuel Macron, who urged Europe to develop more strategic autonomy, including from the US dollar, to avoid being caught in a possible escalation of tensions between the US and China. After Lula, Chinese officials will host Elon Musk, whose trip may include a stop at Tesla Inc.’s Shanghai factory, according to people familiar with the plans.

Good Relations With All

Lula’s visit to Beijing is part of the leftist leader’s plan to resume Brazil’s tradition of multilateralism, which was partly abandoned under former President Jair Bolsonaro.

“We want to have good and close relations with everyone, everywhere,” Brazil’s Foreign Affairs Minister Mauro Vieira told a small group of journalists on April 5, in a briefing ahead of Lula’s trip to China.

The US shouldn’t see Lula’s potential visit to Huawei as a provocation, he said before the meeting was confirmed. “If the president visits other countries, he’ll likely visit other companies,” he said.

Lula’s decision to visit Huawei followed an invitation made by the company, which has been present in Brazil for over 20 years.

In 2021, just as the US Federal Communications Commission included Huawei on a list of technology firms considered to pose “unacceptable risk” to national security, the company won an auction to supply equipment for the implementation of 5G technology across Brazil.

From the archive: How Huawei Landed at the Center of Global Tech Tussle: QuickTake

(Updates with more context starting in second paragraph.)

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