Brazil doesn't want to lose influence in BRICS, which is what any BRICS expansion would do. Basically, China pushed across a bunch of nations in its orbit into BRICS. Brazil was one of the countries against the expansion. So, Lula really wanted Argentina in there to help the Peronist govt there.
So far, it has kind of played out how you would imagine.
Bolsonaro turned out just letting big businesses make decision, so Brazil/China relationship never took a real hard turn to the negative side. Basically, in spite of his personal dislike toward China, Bolsonaro didn't go against his country's interest.
Yoon initially tried to strike more of a balance in policy toward China, but then basically made a hard turn to America after the North Koreans started to test ballistic missiles and he felt Korean security was being tested. Fundamentally, Korean society is just anti-China these days due to China killing their industries. So again, national interest won out here. Although, I would definitely argue that Yoon exacerbated the situation by just naturally anti-China.
Meloni went from a far right govt to just a regular Atlantist and regular right wing govt, so her nomination just pushed Italy further away, but her turn is basically between Bolsonaro and Yoon. In her case, Italy's interest and China's interest don't converge or collide.
In Argentina's case, one would think national interest would push Milei in Bolsonaro direction since both Brazil and Uruguay are working hard to increase exports to China. Any hard turn away from China would hurt all the farmers who have to compete for Chinese market place against Brazilian and Uruguayan farmers
But who knows how practical he will be?
