BolsonaroAndCovid

Quora Answer : How will Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s rejection of a COVID-19 vaccine purchase agreement made with a Chinese company and his remarks on social media where he said his country would not be “anyone’s guinea pig” impact China-Brazil relations?

Oct 26

The Chinese probably don't care that much.

In the sense that China has a big interest in Brazil. Chinese corporations are building hydroelectric in the Amazon region. Are mining in Brazil. And are huge consumers of Brazil's expanded soya and other agricultural production.

As long as Bolsonaro is dismantling Brazil's environmental protections to allow more hydro, more mining, more deforestation to produce more cattle for meat and more soya plantations, his actions are aligned with China's interests, and his words, and whether he buys Chinese vaccines, are immaterial.

The Chinese are interested in what Brazil produces for them. Not whether a million of its citizens die or not. If Brazilians die in greater numbers and the real collapses even further in the ensuing chaos, then that just makes Brazilian commodities cheaper for China.

China does, increasingly, care about politics and its image on the world stage. But not in the context of Brazil. Brazil's opinion of China and tinpot posturing against it can be safely ignored.

By the way, it's hilarious that Bolsonaro says that Brazil won't be anyone's "guinea pig", when he's been promoting and taking hydroxychloroquine as a cure for Covid : Coronavirus: Fake cures in Latin America's deadly outbreak and, as Douglas Oaten points out, has opened Brazil as guinea pig to a bunch of other vaccine trials.

This is pure political posturing.

Quora Answer : Why is Jair Bolsonaro's popularity rising despite Brazil having become the second-most afflicted country by the coronavirus?

Sep 12

One ... even though the numbers are still going up ... there's a kind of fatigue.

Everyone was outraged when Brazil hit 50,000 deaths.

They were still kind of outraged at 100,000 deaths. Now we're into 130,000 deaths ... honestly 10,000 more here or there doesn't "feel" like much. The media have stopped talking about it. People are out on the streets, shops and restaurants have re-opened.

To an extent, people have a kind of "logarithmic" response. Seems we only get shocked and outraged about things that are 10 times what we're used to. Now tens of thousands is the new normal. We need another 100,000 to pay attention.

I suspect 150,000 won't anger people anything like as much as 50,000 even though it's still ANOTHER 50,000 on top of the 100,000 we already had.

Secondly, Bolsonaro has had to make emergency payments to everyone, because of the economic crisis.

He didn't want to. He deliberately fought congress to try to stop it.

But they overruled him.

Now, though, he's reaping the political benefit. People see themselves getting extra money from his government. And they are grateful.

Bolsonaro can now have it both ways. He can say the economic crisis is the fault of those who were panicking unnecessarily about COVID. But he also still gets the credit for people getting the compensatory payments.