Radical leftist President of Brazil Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva complained on Tuesday that details of a private dinner conversation between Brazilian First Lady Rosângela “Janja” da Silva and Chinese dictator Xi Jinping on the subject of TikTok regulation were “leaked” to reporters.
Lula traveled to Beijing this week for a two-day visit that saw him meet with Xi and participate in the fourth ministerial meeting of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) regional bloc and China, in which Xi called for Latin American nations to “stand united” with China.
Brazilian outlets reported on Tuesday that, according to information from unnamed members of Lula’s delegation, First Lady Rosângela da Silva, more commonly referred to as “Janja,” caused an “embarrassing” situation during a private banquet reception in Beijing after she “took the floor” to talk with Xi on the harmful effects of the Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok and how the platform “represented a challenge in the midst of the advance of the extreme right wing in Brazil.” The first lady reportedly claimed that TikTok’s content algorithms “favor the right.”
Brazil’s G1 reported that, according to its sources, Janja heard from Xi himself that Brazil “has the legitimacy to regulate and even ban the platform if it wants to.” G1 said that unnamed observers considered the first lady’s stance “disrespectful” to Xi and one unnamed Brazilian minister reportedly said no one understood “either the topic or the request” to speak at an event where no speeches were planned.
An unnamed member of the delegation asserted that the situation was “embarrassing” and became a “negative point in a trip with positive results for Brazil.” According to G1, Xi’s wife Peng Liyuan was also irritated by Janja’s behavior during the meeting.
President Lula, during a Tuesday press conference in Beijing, reportedly appeared “irritated” that details of the private banquet reception were leaked to the press after reporters asked him for comment on the matter.
The Brazilian president downplayed the situation and claimed to the reporters it was he, and not his wife, who touched upon the subject and asked Xi about the possibility of sending a “trusted person” from the Chinese regime to Brazil to discuss the regulation of platforms, including TikTok.
“The first thing I find strange is how this question got to the press, because only my ministers were there. So someone had the nerve to call someone and tell them about a conversation that happened over dinner — something very, very confidential and personal. And then it was I who asked the question, not Janja,” Lula said.
“I saw in the article that a minister was upset. If a minister was upset, he should have come to me and asked to leave. I would have authorized him to leave,” he added.
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Lula claimed to reporters that after he asked “comrade Xi” if it would be possible for him to send someone he trusts to Brazil to discuss social media regulation and TikTok, his wife Janja asked to speak to “explain what is happening in Brazil, especially against women and children. That was all.”
According to Lula, Xi responded to him that Brazil “has the right” to regulate social media and that “we need to regulate.”
“The fact that my wife asked to speak is because she is not a second-class citizen. She knows more about digital law than I do and decided to speak,” Lula said, stressing that his wife’s intervention was “simply normal” and that he does not know “why anyone thought this was news and went to talk to the press.”
Lula and his wife have both issued repeated calls for the regulation of social media.
In November, during a sideline event on the occasion of that year’s annual G20 summit, Janja called for the regulation of social media to stop the spread of “false information” and delivered an expletive-laced rant at Twitter owner Elon Musk after a nearby ship’s foghorn sounded, interrupting her speech. Janja appeared to claim that Musk conspired to make the foghorn drown out her words.
“I’m not afraid of you!” Janja said in Portuguese, before adding, “Fuck you, Elon Musk!” in English. The Brazilian first lady then reportedly looked towards Brazilian influencer Felipe Neto and said, “You said fuck you, I can, too,” to which the man responded, “You can. you should.”
Fuck you, Elon Musk,”
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) November 16, 2024
says Brazil's first lady, Janja da Silva, during the G20 Social panel. pic.twitter.com/z99XqiHwnj
During his 2024 speech at the United Nations General Assembly, Lula, at a time when the social media platform Twitter (or “X”) was banned in Brazil, appeared to defend the censorship of conservative voices and opinion in his country as necessary for “the defense of democracy.” In April, First Lady Janja called for the regulation of all social media after a Brazilian eight-year-old died from a cardiac arrest after inhaling gas from an aerosol deodorant as part of a viral TikTok “challenge.”
During a February 2023 interview, Lula said that “the only way to have a regulation [of social media] is worldwide” and asserted that he would discuss the matter with former U.S. President Joe Biden during his official visit to the White House later that month.
“You can’t make a regulation only in the country, so it has to be an issue to be discussed in the G20,” Lula said. “Biden defeated Trump, but he didn’t defeat the extreme right — it is alive.”
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
