Foreign Minister Wang Yi is scheduled to visit Brazil later this week after wrapping up his four-country tour in Africa that started on Saturday. Given the important role the Latin American giant plays in the world, the significance of this visit cannot be exaggerated.

The visit is expected to carry on the positive momentum of the development of the comprehensive China-Brazil strategic partnership that was effectively consolidated by Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's state visit to China in April last year.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the founding of their diplomatic relations. The past 50 years have not only seen China and Brazil become the largest developing countries in the Eastern and Western hemispheres respectively, but also witnessed them becoming major players on the world stage.

The complementarity of their economic structure means the two sides have great potential to deepen their current cooperation in such areas as minerals and technology, and to expand it into new sectors including environmental protection, climate change, the low-carbon economy and the digital economy.

The development of Sino-Brazilian pragmatic economic and trade cooperation aims to promote common development of the two countries and does not target at any third party. The two sides, upholding international equity and justice, stand ready to work with each other to strengthen strategic coordination in the G20, BRICS and other multilateral institutions, enhance coordination and cooperation in international finance, climate response and environmental protection, and contribute to developing countries' efforts to realize fairer and more balanced global development.

Given this, it is predictable that some in the United States will try to misinterpret Wang's visit as the latest attempt by Beijing to make trouble in Washington's "backyard". But the Latin American countries — especially such an important emerging market economy as Brazil — are nobody's "backyard".

Their shared and firm belief in true multilateralism and their upholding of the United Nations-centered international order and economic globalization put Brazil and China in the same trench fighting unilateralism, hegemony and protectionism. That does not mean they are trying to overturn the international system. It means they are trying to improve it.