Brazil has now benefited from what has become the traditional Chinese hospitality gift to a prominent international visitor. The two countries signed a contract for Brazilian passenger planes to service China's growing domestic air traffic.

It was also a way of allaying Brazilian sensitivities that the burgeoning trade relations between China and Brazil would hollow out Brazilian industries due to the artificially weak Chinese currency and the strong Brazilian currency.

Brazil's president Dilma Roussef is visiting China for the BRICS summit meeting that will start tomorrow on Hainan Island and convene Brazil, Russia, India, China and also South Africa, the newest member. Roussef took along with her 300 business leaders.

China has invested 30 billion dollars in Brazil recently including 10 billion in Petrobras offshore oil exploration. Additionally, China has financed a new highway that will link Brazil via Peru to the Pacific Ocean, thus facilitating Chinese access to Brazilian products.

In addition to fostering trade relations, the Chinese hosts seek to leverage the bloc into an effective counterweight to the West. This is ostensibly in order to give greater weight to the developing countries who "need to further reinforce and improve their cooperation, coordinate their stances and actively participate in global rule-making, so that the emerging and developing economies can have more voices and rights of development," to cite a recent Chinese Academy of Social Sciences paper.

The term "developing nation" is misleading, given the wealth of the quintet and particularly China. The term is useful to distinguish the group from the developed European and North American states and as a way to repel demands from the United States and the EU.  It is also a way to allow these countries to retain their tariff barriers citing the excuse that they are still little guys who must protect their fledgling industries.

The truth of the matter is that it is no longer the developed north against the underdeveloped south. The four guests have already presented China with a demand that it should buy more of their value added products, for example Indian pharmaceuticals.

Chinese penetration of Africa and Latin America has hurt local industries who cannot compete with China's prices. South Africa is  flattered by the fact that it, rather than Nigeria, has been chosen as a representative of the African continent, but symbolism must be weighed against trade imbalances now that China has surpassed Germany to become South Africa's largest source of imports.

A major difference in the group is that India, Brazil and South Africa are countries that emphasize democratic values, while Russia and China believe that semi-authoritarian rule is the key to growth.