Chinese Marines Participate in Brazil’s Military Exercise for the First Time
https://fmso.tradoc.army.mil/2024/chinese-marines-participate-in-brazils-military-exercise-for-the-first-time/
The participation of Chinese Marines in Operation Formosa, a multinational military exercise hosted by Brazil’s Navy, caps off a diplomatically busy summer between China and Brazil.[i] However, Chinese media coverage of the military exercise was muted. The excerpted article in the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported on a single statement from the Chinese Defense Ministry, which noted the exercise would “deepen friendship and cooperation between the Chinese and participating militaries and enhance their ability to jointly respond to security risk challenges.” The SCMP article noted the focus of the exercise was joint landing and anti-landing combat drills—the same type of exercises the U.S. is engaging in across the nations of the South China Sea, to include the Philippines. The SCMP article did acknowledge that the Chinese military participation in Brazil was unusual given that Chinese military exercises are overwhelmingly focused on the South China Sea.
The exercise received different coverage in the Brazilian press. According to the excerpted article in Brazilian flagship news outlet Globo, the annual exercise featured 3,000 military personnel from Brazil, 63 U.S. Marines, and 32 People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Marines. Eight additional countries sent military observers.[ii] The U.S. had participated in the same exercise in previous years, but it was the first time for PLA personnel. While Brazil heralded the trilateral military exercise as significant for bringing the United States and China together, U.S. defense officials confirmed that U.S. troops participating in the exercise did not train nor participate alongside the contingent of PLA Marines participating in the exercise.[iii] No further explanations were publicized.
While minimal in scope, the participation of Chinese PLA Marines in Operation Formosa is but one of a host of other diplomatic collaborations between China and Brazil. This includes Brazil’s July pronouncement that it would like to participate in China’s Belt and Road Initiative; the joint commemoration of the 50-year anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Brazil in August; and Brazil and Chinese participation at the recent BRICS summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, in September.[iv] Seen in conjunction with these other events and pronouncements, the participation of Chinese Marines in Operation Formosa adds to the body of evidence of a deepening China-Brazil relationship.
Sources:
Yuanyue Dang,“In rare shift, China will send marine corps to Brazil for joint military exercise,” South China Morning Post, 6 September 2024. https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3277473/rare-shift-china-will-send-marine-corps-brazil-joint-military-exercise?module=perpetual_scroll_0&pgtype=article
China’s Maritime Moves in South America: A Wake-Up Call for U.S. Leadership
Donald Trump Should Look South to Compete with China: China is still Mahanian. Twenty-one years ago, I closed out my very first hefty journal article, over at Comparative Strategy, with an offhand observation that the works of Alfred Thayer Mahan, the fin de siècle American maritime historian and theorist, had found favor in a Communist China that had cast its gaze seaward in search of economic prosperity and martial clout. Just as Mahan molded geopolitical thought in the Kaiser’s Germany during his lifetime—that was my article’s subject—he could do so in China a century hence.
As indeed he has. Mahan’s ideas radiate allure for seagoing societies beyond his life and times—and beyond North America.
Exhibit A: last Thursday the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Xi Jinping, descended on Lima, Peru, to start a weeklong diplomatic tour of South America. Xi will round out his travels by visiting Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to take part in a Group of 20 summit. There’s a Mahanian tinge to his itinerary. The CCP supremo joined Peruvian president Dina Boluarte at a virtual ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new Peruvian seaport of Chancay, some forty-eight miles north of Lima. Beijing bankrolled the project to the tune of $1.3 billion.
And gained a lodgment for Chinese sea power on this side of the Pacific Ocean. Money well spent.
(excerpt)