Last week, an interview at a Brazilian defense website revealed that China and Brazil had come to an agreement regarding the training of Chinese naval personnel on board the Sao Paulo, Brazil's only aircraft carrier. Brazil is one of the only four countries in the world to possess an aircraft carrier capable of launching and recovering conventional aircraft; the others are France, Russia, and the United States. The United States has little interest in training Chinese pilots and crew, France is prohibited from doing so under EU law, and Russia is currently engulfed in an intellectual property-related spat over Chinese fighter aircraft.
China currently has no operational aircraft carriers, but is widely believed to be planning a fleet. This left Brazil as China's only option for a preview of big deck carrier operations. These operations are quite complicated, and take a long time to master. Cooperation with Brazil, both in terms of generating familiarity with the carrier and in terms of accessing the expertise of Brazilian military officers, could provide China a shortcut through years of expensive and dangerous training.
It's evident what the Chinese get out of this deal, but what brings the Brazilians on board? Mr. Trend has some thoughts:
The agreement is mutually beneficial for both China and Brazil; China gets training, and Brazil strengthens its reputation and power as a global force. The agreement on the carrier training was apparently part of the private meetings between China and Brazil during Lula's trip to Beijing last week, itself a noteworthy event as China and Brazil strengthened their trade relations in what they hope is a mutually beneficial agreement that would reduce both countries' dependency on the U.S. economy (and also agreed to jointly send 3 satellites into space by 2013). China will send military leaders to Brazil to train, and Defense Minister Nelson Jobim will be going to China in September, presumably when the details of the arrangement will be worked out.Given the nervousness that the United States has historically displayed about any foreign power intervention in Latin America (other than its own), I'm mildly surprised that we haven't heard a louder reaction to this deal from the US defense and foreign policy community. I suspect that we might have under the previous administration.Although Brazil has little it is materially gaining directly from China in this agreement, I think it could be the biggest "winner" here. That a country as powerful as China is turning to Brazil (and only partly out of necessity) is a real coup in Brazil's efforts to demonstrate its equality with the other major world powers.
--Robert Farley
