“Huawei or Not? Brazil Faces a Key Geopolitical Choice” – 30 June 2020

…As Brazil is gripped by the toxic mix of an acute political crisis, economic collapse, an environmental crisis in the Amazon and the worst public health emergency in a century, few are paying attention to a topic that is set to have a profound and long-term impact on the country’s geopolitical role in the 21st century: Its decision of who will build its 5G telecommunications network, pitting China’s Huawei against its American-backed rivals, led by Sweden’s Ericsson and Finland’s Nokia…Yet the government also knows full well that Brazil’s economy is deeply dependent on China. Despite the president’s attempts to forge a strategic alliance with Trump — which has produced mixed results — Brazil’s dependence on the Asian giant has only grown during his presidency, a trend that is set to continue. About a third of Brazil’s exports go to China, more than twice the amount of products headed to the United States…Another complicating factor is an unpredictable presidential election in the United States in November...Next month, Leonardo de Moraes, the head of Anatel, Brazil’s Telecommunications Agency, will present a report on the matter – which will inevitably upset one side in the debate. The natural temptation for Brazil in such a high-stakes scenario involving two superpowers is to kick the decision down the road, and further delays — or even the reversal of key decisions — must be expected. Initially scheduled to take place in March 2020, the long-awaited 5G auction was postponed to December before being postponed to 2021. Yet Rodrigo Maia is certainly right to point out that the longer Brazil dithers, the greater the risk of falling even further behind as global dynamics will increasingly be shaped by the battle for technological supremacy between China and the United States…