evidence: At the time, Lula and his advisors celebrated Brazil and China’s growing ties. But some in Brazil’s foreign- and economic-policy communities also started to question whether Brazil was being careful enough in its bilateral trade with China. The fine print of the various agreements signed last week suggests their concerns have shaped the new Lula government’s approach to Beijing. During Lula’s first period in office, China had an overwhelming appetite for Brazilian raw materials such as soybeans, iron ore, and oil. But some makers of Brazilian manufactured goods reported difficulty selling on the Chinese market. Meanwhile, manufacturing’s share of Brazil’s GDP was shrinking fast. When Brazil’s foreign ministry published a collection of essays on Brazil-China relations in 2011, many debated whether economic relations with China were contributing to deindustrialization in Brazil. [...] Sullivan and Jean-Pierre said that the Brazil-U.S. relationship remained strong, but commentators overwhelmingly agreed that Brazil has burned some of the Western goodwill it initially enjoyed after Lula’s inauguration in January. Brazil should assume "real commitments to liberal democracies that helped defeat Bolsonaro’s putschism," Brazilian journalist João Paulo Charleaux tweeted. "It’s necessary to take a side in international relations."