The year 2026 has been marked by deepening Brazil-China relations within universities.

In February, the Brazil-China Program for Leaders in Scientific and Technological Innovation was launched, sending graduate students and faculty abroad. Later, in April, a major partnership was signed between Brazil's Federal University of Minas Gerais, or UFMG, and China's Huazhong University of Science and Technology, or HUST, in Hubei province, for scientific cooperation in several areas.

Higher education leaders said this rise is the result of the intensification of international relations in the Global South and the strong performance of the Confucius Institute in the country.

According to Aziz Tuffi Saliba, UFMG's international relations director, the effort to host a Confucius Institute was key to bringing HUST in. Now the Confucius Institute helps deepen ties and expand into research cooperation, bringing UFMG's expertise to the Chinese institution.

"Given China's role and international weight, our collaboration still needs to grow a lot for the proportion of academic cooperation to match China's political and economic importance," Saliba said.

Ricardo Trindade, a professor and coordinator of the USP-China Center at the University of Sao Paulo, said the institution created the center to work exclusively on relations between the two countries in 2025, and since then, 76 agreements have been signed between USP and Chinese organizations.

"There has been a qualitative leap in our relationship with Chinese institutions by incorporating some of China's top universities, as well as strategic institutions for the common interests of both countries," Trindade said. "Notable in this context are partnerships with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, as well as universities with a strong applied focus."

According to Trindade, those agreements focus on engineering, exact science and technology fields, reflecting the Chinese model of strong integration among universities, industry and government.

State University of Campinas, or Unicamp, has grown its partnership with the Confucius Institute, recently publishing bilingual books between China and Brazil. It began with a translation of Chinese writer Lu Xun's short story collection Dawn Blossoms Plucked at Dusk from Chinese to Portuguese, and Brazilian author Machado de Assis' The Alienist from Portuguese to Chinese.

Global South cooperation

"As two Global South countries that have always been closely tied to Western science and technology, strengthening ties between countries that face similar challenges and can redirect their science and technology systems to meet those challenges is very important," said Celio Hiratuka, director of the Interdisciplinary Center for Brazil-China Studies of Unicamp.

Cui Guangying, Chinese director of the Confucius Institute at UFMG, said the Chinese school's distinguishing feature is that it aims not only to teach language but also to serve as an intellectual bridge.

Currently, there are Confucius Institutes and similar institutions at more than 10 Brazilian universities, according to the federal government, located in all regions of the country.

"The dialogue between the Confucius Institute and universities can be described as a symbiotic partnership," Cui said. "On one side, we have the spread of Chinese culture and its adaptation to the local context. On the other, the critical perspective and deep knowledge of Brazilian academia, which help redefine the study of China."

Cui said that Brazil has unique natural resources, biodiversity and agricultural technology expertise that strongly complement China's scientific priorities in areas such as new energy, climate change and food security.

The Brazilian Ministry of Education said in a statement that "the partnership between UFMG and Huazhong University, two reference institutions, opens new academic and professional possibilities for Chinese and Brazilians" and that "the Confucius Institutes play an important role in teaching Chinese language and culture to students at Brazilian universities".

The writer is a freelance journalist for China Daily.