Formal relations between the Empire of Brazil and the Qing dynasty were established in September 1880 with the Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation. The Chinese refused, however, to permit Brazilians to hire Chinese as contract laborers, knowing that non-white laborers were treated "as machines or as cheap labour". The British were also opposed to the importation of Chinese labor to Brazil, believing it would inevitably result in de facto slavery. (Slavery in Brazil was only abolished in 1888.) Late in 1893, José de Costa Azevedo, Baron of Ladario, went to Beijing to negotiate a new treaty on immigration, but the Chinese were uninterested.[1] Relations continued under the Republic of China (ROC) on its founding in 1912 which Brazil recognized and maintained even after the central government was moved to the former Japanese colony of Taiwan (1895–1945).[2]
Significant immigration of Taiwanese to Brazil started in 1960s. Most Taiwanese Brazilian were farmers from Kaohsiung.[2]
Many Taiwanese Brazilian now live in São Paulo, Rio Grande do Sul, Paraná and Rio de Janeiro. In the northern Brazil, the fifth-large city Recife is another main settlement of Taiwanese Brazilian, mostly from Meinong, Kaohsiung.[2] In the suburbs of São Paulo, over hundred Taiwanese Brazilian established mushroom farms which supply all of Brazil.[8]
Economic relations
Taiwan is one of Brazil's most important trade partners in Asia. The main export products from Brazil to Taiwan are ore, soybean, corn, woods, steel, cotton, leather and granite. Brazil is the eighteenth trade partner for Taiwan. The main products which Taiwan exports to Brazil are electrical equipment, record equipment, LCD, steel products and plastic products.[9]
^Jeffrey Lesser, Negotiating National Identity: Immigrants, Minorities, and the Struggle for Ethnicity in Brazil (Durham & London: Duke University Press, 1999), p. 29.