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BRASILIA: Brazil wants a seat at the top table of world nations. It is the second-most populous country in the Western Hemisphere, a multiracial democracy and a major provider of foodstuffs to a hungry world. But it lacks the economic strength or military power to ascend automatically to the ranks of global political powers.
Brazil hopes to achieve its aspirations through the geopolitical back door by, for example, leading a peacekeeping mission to Haiti, proposing a global war on hunger at the United Nations and trying to maintain regional political stability.
Its leadership of poor nations in world trade talks and growing role as a Latin American conflict mediator has caught the eye of rich countries.
So too has proletarian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's move to stick with conservative fiscal policies and help build Brazil's best economic conditions in two decades.
Lula hopes greater global influence that will strengthen Brazil's hand in trade disputes, boost the self esteem of Brazilians and ultimately help its economy to grow.
"There seems to be a tendency to want to make a jump to the power politics game," said Mario Marconini of the Brazilian Center for International Relations think tank.
"The big question is are they going to hurt themselves, are they going to be overly pretentious?"
Brazil hopes such power will be manifested in it gaining a permanent seat on the UN Security Council and invitations to join clubs for powerful nations such as the Group of Eight.
Lula has yet to explain fully to Brazil's 180 million people how global political influence will fix its 11 per cent illiteracy rate, widespread poverty, crumbling roads and stifling bureaucracy.
But even critics are surprised how far the former union boss has got.
Foreign Minister Celso Amorim regularly discusses regional security with US Secretary of State Colin Powell, although they agree to disagree on Washington's war on terror.
Britain, France, Germany and Japan have backed Brazil's bid to represent Latin America with a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. Brazil is among candidates for a possible expansion of the Group of Eight industrialized nations.
RIGHT TIME?: Brazil has traditionally shied away from overt regional or global leadership, fearing it lacked power to lead neighbours or openly challenge US and European interests.
But Lula's 21-month-old administration has butted heads with Washington and Brussels over trade to open up markets to Brazil's farm exports. It has defied US and UN demands for checks on its nuclear fuel facility.
Such moves would have been unthinkable a decade ago before former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso strengthened ties with emerging powers India and South Africa and made Brazil the linchpin of South America's Mercosur trade pact.
Within Brazil, there is consensus that Lula is right to seek a global niche but fears he may fail to translate political rhetoric into economic power.
There are concerns Lula may rely too heavily on developing world alliances and trade deals with socialist countries like China rather than trade with wealthy nations.
The largest emerging market debtor, Brazil is vulnerable to economic shocks that could throw it off its foreign policy track.
"Brazil still doesn't have the conditions to really upgrade itself," said political analyst Luciano Dias of the Goes consultancy in Brasilia. "We have terrible schools and a fragile economy. Brazil is no India with a billion people, seven per cent annual growth and atomic weapons."
The country has already seen its limits.
Leadership of the UN mission to Haiti has stretched military and economic resources. It put into question Brazil's ability to take on larger peacekeeping roles with a UN Security Council seat.
Lula's invitation in May to China and Russia to join an alliance of emerging nations with Brazil, India and South Africa has so far fallen on deaf ears.
"(Brazil) will be one of the major emerging powers over the next few years, along with India and South Africa. China and Russia I put in slightly different baskets," British Ambassador to Brazil, Peter Collecott, said in a recent speech.
Benefits of trade battles could be years away and depend on Europe and the United States axing subsidies in line with WTO rulings and accords.
Then there are concerns that Brazil, with some of the world's worst wealth inequalities, cannot act as a moral leader. Lula, the son of poor illiterate farmers, sees no such inconsistencies.
Corruption and deep administrative problems in his flagship domestic anti-poverty programme did not stop him launching global anti-hunger plans at the United Nations in September.
He has not let human rights issues get in the way of trade talks with countries like China, Syria, Libya and Cuba. "It's the real mark of power politics," Marconini said.-Reuters
