This Friday (30), Folha is launching two platforms with exclusive content on China. Subscribers will be able to receive the “China, Terra do Meio” newsletter and read texts containing information, analyzes and curiosities about the Asian country on the blog which bears the same name as the newsletter, on the newspaper’s website.
The blog and newsletter, which will be sent out once a week, every Friday – see how to subscribe here – are edited by journalist Igor Patrick, who holds a Masters in Chinese Studies (Politics and International Relations) from the Academy. Yenching in Beijing. University. He is also communications director for the Observa China network and hosts the weekly Chinese Pagoda podcast.
“This is an opportunity to provide Folha readers with more information about China and to qualify the debate in the country,” says Patrick. “In the newsletter, I will carefully curate relevant topics in Chinese news, while the blog will function as an extension of these topics, with analyzes, historical curiosities and interviews with people dedicated to understanding the global impact of China’s rise to power. “
Since 2009, China has been Brazil’s largest trading partner, and last year it was responsible for more than a third of all Brazilian exports. Also in 2020, the two countries hit the historic mark, surpassing US $ 100 billion. Today, the Chinese are the largest suppliers of vaccines and raw materials for the production of immunizers in Brazil.
Internationally, the Asian country has consolidated its position as a world power in recent years. It is the strongest economy in terms of purchasing power parity, and its GDP is expected to surpass that of the United States in 2028, five years earlier than initially projected.
The name of the newsletter and blog is inspired by the origin of the word China, which in standard Mandarin is expressed as two characters (中国, read Zhōngguó). Translated to the letter, they mean empire, land, middle nation. The choice comes from an ancient tradition – not exclusive to the Chinese – of considering their country as the center of the world.
Master in Classical Chinese Literature at Wuhan University, Calebe Guerra explains that the original word was used to demarcate the capital of several different peoples, but united by the same language.
In pictographic language, in which each character has its own meaning and is inspired by an image, guó (国) marks this heritage. “The risks surrounding this character go back to the cities closed by a wall and indicated the representation of the territory,” he says.
He explains that the first word, Zhōng (中), incorporates the meaning of “middle” in the name of the territory which belonged to the emperor, “placing his government and himself as the center not only geographically and within the wall. , but also over time “.