<div style="text-align: justify; "><b style="font-size: 1rem;">Brazil's leftist leader Luiz Inacio Lulada Silva will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing next week, where he hopes to reinforce trade, discuss international mediation in Ukraine, and reclaim his country's role in global geopolitics.</b><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">After a period of isolation under his far-right predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, Lula is wasting no time in renewing ties with allies.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Just three months into his latest term as president, he has already visited Argentina and the United States -- and the six-day trip to China, Brazil's largest trading partner, is key to his ambitions.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Lula's visit is a very clear signal that he wants a high level bilateral dialogue and a deepening of this relationship," Evandro Menezes de Carvalho, a China expert at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, told AFP.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Analysts say Chinese hopes are also high, as officials in Beijing see Brazil -- a leader in the global south -- as a linchpin in their strategic and economic plans.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ukraine will be a main topic of discussion during the visit, which officially begins Tuesday, with Lula hoping to promote his proposal for mediated talks to end Russia's invasion of the country.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Xi himself will be fresh from talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow earlier this week, where he also presented himself as a peace-seeking mediator -- though he made no apparent breakthrough.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ukraine's Western allies have heavily criticized Xi's approach as tacit support for Moscow's invasion.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But Lula sees China as an "important ally" of his own initiative of creating a group of countries seeking a negotiated peace deal, the government in Brasilia said in a statement.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lula, who has been president of Brazil twice before, is keen to position the South American giant as a go-between, like he did during his second term of office during nuclear discussions between Iran and the United States.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">However, his diplomatic stock took a hit last year when he came under fire for claiming that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was "as responsible" for the war as Putin.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He has also refused to join Western nations in sending weapons to Ukraine to help it defend itself.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">- 'Clear signal' -</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Trade will also be high on the agenda in Beijing, with Lula traveling to China alongside a large business and ministerial entourage.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Bolsonaro also visited China, but that relationship soured after he joined then-US president Donald Trump in blaming Beijing for the Covid-19 pandemic.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">That did not affect business dealings, though, with commercial exchanges last year surpassing $150 billion.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Brazil received a boost on Thursday when China decided to lift a month-long suspension of Brazilian beef imports after an "isolated" case of mad cow disease was confirmed in February.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The country wants to promote "trade, concentrating on the diversification of products... but also to bring Chinese investments and advance in other guidelines," said Menezes.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He pointed to the potential for developing technology like semiconductors and artificial intelligence, or resuming projects for a bullet train between Brazilian cities.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Brazil was also the main destination for Chinese investment in Latin America between 2007 and 2020, according to the Brazil-China Business Council, worth $70 billion.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The money was mostly invested in oil and electricity generation, but also in the automobile industry, heavy machinery, mining, agriculture and information technology.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Brazil is a huge market for Chinese companies, such as technology giant Huawei.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">And an agreement between the two countries to use the yuan in bilateral multi-million dollar trade could help internationalize the Chinese currency.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"The size of Brazil and the size of the relationship also means that successful engagement with Brazil more than any other country supports China's global strategic economic goals," said Evan Ellis, China and Russia</div><div style="text-align: justify;">expert at the Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies in Washington.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">- 'Strategic partnership' -</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"It is certainly about economics and business and there is a huge business partnership, but one should not lose sight of the fact that there is also a strategic partnership" based on Brazil's role as a leader in the global south, said Ellis.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lula made multilateral diplomacy a priority in his previous two terms as president, and visited Beijing three times.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It was during his watch that the BRICS group of emerging economies comprising Brazil, India, China, Russia and South Africa was created.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In Beijing, Lula will also meet with Premier Li Qiang and Zhao Leji, president of the Popular Assembly.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He will head to Shanghai where his domestic political ally Dilma Rousseff, who succeeded him as president in 2011, is due to take over as head of the New Development Bank, also known as the BRICS bank.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">On his way home, Lula will visit the United Arab Emirates for two days. AFP</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">bnbd24/kh</div>