The Americans obviously would not allow a fire to break out in their own backyard, so they were very wary of Brazil's renewed contact with the Soviet Union and began to further increase their surveillance of Brazil.
And tried to put pressure on the Brazilian government through various channels in an attempt to prevent Brazil from restoring diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union.
The US ambassador to Brazil once again found Fang Lang and tried to persuade the Brazilian government to stop contact with the Soviet Union through Fang Lang, a staunch pro-American.
However, what the Americans didn't know was that all of this was happening with Fang Lang's instigation. Without Fang Lang's consent, the report about the US government's interference in Brazil's internal affairs would not have been published.
Not to mention the increasingly fierce war of public opinion in the news media. You should know that a series of mainstream Brazilian media such as the Brazilian Times are all under the control of Fangyuan Group.
The Americans are not unaware of this. Their purpose in seeking out Fang Lang is to influence the stance of a series of mainstream media such as the Brazil Times through Fang Lang, so that everyone will take a stance that is clearly biased towards the United States when reporting the news.
Instead of accepting editorials from all walks of life in a completely neutral manner and publishing them in newspapers without any modification as is done now.
It must be said that Fang Tao, under Fang Lang's guidance, had already mastered the skill of controlling public opinion. He specially opened a debate section, allowing representatives from the pro-US and pro-Soviet parties to take turns to make their voices heard on their own media channels.
It seemed fair and just that he did not interfere and allowed both sides to debate freely, but as the mainstream media in Brazil, he actually took sides by suggesting that the pro-Soviet media publish articles.
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But in the eyes of Americans, the Brazilian Times's approach is a pure lack of understanding of politics. How can they really allow those literati and scholars to debate freely?
They don’t even understand the most basic news control.
Fang Lang clearly rejected the US ambassador's request, saying that this is press freedom in Brazil and we cannot cover everyone's mouths and not give them the opportunity to speak.
He also said that he learned press freedom from the Americans. How could he not implement it to the end? This left the American ambassador speechless for a while.
However, as the American ambassador traveled around Brazil, a considerable number of Brazilians did stand up and began to whitewash the United States. Fang Lang took this opportunity to quietly count those who cooperated with the Americans and set up a complete file for them.
But even though people kept coming out to defend the US's interference in Brazil's internal affairs, it still failed to prevent Brazil and the Soviet Union from restoring diplomatic relations.
After all, as an important ally of the United States in South America, Brazil's restoration of diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union was equivalent to a major victory for Soviet diplomacy, and correspondingly, it naturally meant a diplomatic failure for the United States.
The Soviet Union would naturally welcome anything that would lead to the failure of the United States. To this end, the Soviets made major concessions in the process of restoring bilateral relations between the two countries.
This is naturally a rare diplomatic victory for the Brazilian government represented by President Scalia, and it is worth promoting with all efforts.
Therefore, for a long time afterwards, various Brazilian newspapers began to focus on promoting the benefits of Brazil's restoration of diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, and especially emphasized the ability to import relatively cheaper oil from the Soviet Union.
This is a shot in the arm for Brazil, which is currently facing soaring oil prices, to boost national consumer confidence. Moreover, Brazil can also export its domestically produced agricultural and sideline products to the Soviet Union.
At the same time, Brazil's developed industry was also able to export a large number of industrial products to the Soviet Union, among which rubber products were the largest.
This situation obviously touched the sensitive nerves of the US government, which began to hold frequent talks with the Brazilian government, demanding that the Brazilian government ban the sale of certain high-tech products to the Soviet Union, with a focus on electronic products and high-precision machine tools.
This is because Brazil is now the only country that can compete with the United States in these two areas. It is no exaggeration to say that it is even more advanced than the US government.
In order to persuade the Brazilian government to ban the sale of these products to the Soviet Union, the US government had to offer many sincere conditions, including relaxing controls on Brazil's refined oil products, which allowed Brazil's oil prices to quickly return to normal levels.
In fact, the reason why the United States is willing to resume control over refined oil products is because it has seen that the Brazilian Circular Group has been active in the crude oil market in the past two years and has achieved great success.
Not to mention that after the re-establishment of diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, Brazil will be able to import large quantities of oil from the Soviet Union. The oil purchase agreement signed between Fangyuan Petrochemical and the government of the Portuguese colony of Angola alone will be able to greatly alleviate Brazil's oil shortage.
It has to be said that in the past two years, after Fangyuan Group and Richfield Oil Company jointly established Fangyuan Petrochemical, they have indeed invested huge energy in the international crude oil market. Not only did they openly begin to look for oil shares in the Persian Gulf, they also won large crude oil orders from Dutch Shell.
In private, it has quietly extended its tentacles across the Atlantic Ocean to the African crude oil market, which has not received much attention from Western capitalist countries.
Among them, the investment in the Portuguese colony of Angola was even greater. Not only did it purchase large amounts of crude oil from the Portuguese, but it also began negotiations with the Portuguese government to obtain the right to exploit oil in Angola.
Although the Portuguese government has not yet agreed to Brazil's demands, most people believe that Portugal will not be able to hold out for long. After all, Brazil is not only negotiating with Portugal in the business field.
Secretly, they are also in contact with the local indigenous people of Angola. As for the purpose of the contact, it is naturally self-evident, which can be seen from the increasingly restless situation in Angola.
The Portuguese authorities believed that if Portugal continued to insist on not allowing Brazil to intervene in Angola's oil production, Brazil would very likely support Angola's independence.
This made the Portuguese authorities very annoyed, but they were somewhat helpless. After all, Brazil's global influence at this time had actually surpassed Portugal. The close ties that Brazil had established with European countries through the European aid program alone were something that Portugal could not match.
In order to deal with Brazil's continuous infiltration into Angola, Portugal had to make Angola its overseas province earlier than in history, and try to reduce Angola's colonial attributes.
But this obviously cannot really solve the problem, because no matter how hard Portugal tries to reduce the colonial attributes of Angola, it cannot change the fact that it is a Portuguese colony.
At this time, Brazil appeared in Angola and acted as a troublemaker, which made Portugal very uncomfortable. What's more hateful is that Brazil's purpose is very clear. It only wants oil and is willing to pay for the oil it extracts.
Instead of plundering like the colonists, the locals in Angola had a very good impression of the Brazilians. They not only sent them food and clothes, but also built public facilities such as schools and bridges for them.
Under such circumstances, the Portuguese government had no choice but to approve Fangyuan Petrochemical's right to exploit oil in Angola in February 1954. Of course, the oil that was mined had to pay a high mineral tax to the Portuguese government.
Fangyuan Petrochemical doesn't care about this at all. After all, the price of extracting oil by itself, plus the mineral tax, is much lower than the price of buying oil from the Portuguese.
To this end, Fangyuan Petrochemical began to build a large number of oil fields, oil pipelines, and docks in Angola, directly transporting crude oil through pipelines to ports and then to Brazil.
Considering long-term interests, Fangyuan Petrochemical's oil extraction in Brazil is not an act of plunder. They have also compensated the local people to a certain extent, not only providing a large number of jobs, but also building schools, roads and other public facilities in the local area.
This gives Brazil a much better reputation in Angola than Portugal.
In addition, Fangyuan Petrochemical has also focused on improving relations with its neighboring country Venezuela. It not only imports a large amount of crude oil from Venezuela, but also plans to build a crude oil pipeline connecting the two countries.
Of course, this pipeline was built in a very confidential manner. The purpose of doing so is naturally to prevent Fangyuan Group from still being able to import oil from Venezuela after Venezuela and the United States fall out and the United States imposes an embargo on Venezuela.
The starting point of the pipeline in Brazil is in the city of Cucuy in the Amazon state, which borders Venezuela and Colombia in the northwest of Brazil. The reason why the starting point of the pipeline is set at this location is that it can avoid the Guiana Plateau terrain at the border between Brazil and Venezuela to the greatest extent.
Secondly, the garrison commander here, Major General Tabio Mac, was one of the first army officers to join Fang Lang's army. He was the commander of the Sixth Division of the National Defense Force who took the initiative to talk to Fang Lang and asked about jungle warfare tactics during the celebration banquet after Fang Lang eliminated the Eddie brothers' anti-government armed forces.
However, Fang Lang is not in a hurry to build this pipeline because now that Brazil and the Soviet Union have restored diplomatic relations, the Soviet Union can provide Brazil with a steady supply of high-quality crude oil. Unlike Venezuela, the oil quality is very poor, mostly high-sulfur heavy oil, and the processing cost is relatively high.
The reason why Fang Lang wanted to build this pipeline secretly was to avoid the United States imposing crude oil restrictions on Brazil in the future. After all, the amount of crude oil on land in Brazil is really limited.
Although Brazil will be able to extract a lot of crude oil from the seabed with the continuous improvement of crude oil extraction technology in the future, this will still be a long process.
Of course, these are Fangyuan Group’s layout in the international crude oil market in the past two years.
With the resumption of diplomatic relations between Brazil and the Soviet Union, Brazilian products had a new huge market, providing strong impetus for the further rapid development of Brazil's domestic economy.
This made the knowledgeable people in Brazil further confirm the correctness of re-establishing diplomatic relations between Brazil and the Soviet Union. It also made everyone realize that Brazil should be more independent and should not follow the Americans and let them manipulate it.
In just a few months, the national independence consciousness in Brazil was so high that the US government was frightened.
At this moment, Fang Lang, who had been silent for a long time, suddenly summoned his political spokesperson Xin Shiliang to his estate in Rio de Janeiro.
Xin Shiliang felt a hint of excitement deep in his heart about Fang Lang's sudden summons. In recent years, with the further expansion of Fangyuan Group's strength, the political resources he controlled became increasingly huge.
If he was a little timid and unconfident when he pushed Mr. Scalia to the presidency, he is now absolutely confident about it.
As long as Fang Lang agrees, he can make the Brazilian government pass any bill and policy at any time, and can easily decide the candidate for the Brazilian president.
Because it was already July 1954, and Brazil would soon enter the presidential election year. At this time, Fang Lang personally summoned him for an interview. Xin Shiliang's first reaction was that Fang Lang wanted to discuss the candidate for the next president with him.
Therefore, he was both nervous and excited. This was a matter that would decide the candidate for the president of a country! Who would have thought that he, the secretary general of the Fangyuan Group chairman's office who was not very prominent in front of outsiders, would have the honor to participate in the decision-making of the new Brazilian president so early?
With this feeling, Xin Shiliang followed Fu Bo, the steward of Fang Lang Manor, and walked into Fang Lang's study.
At this time, Fang Lang was practicing calligraphy with a brush at the long table in the study. When he saw Xin Shiliang come in, he just nodded slightly.
"Haha... Shiliang is here, please sit down first. Uncle Fu, please pour Shiliang a cup of tea. I'll finish writing this first."
As he spoke, he gestured to Xin Shiliang to sit in the reception area in front of the desk, and casually instructed his butler.
Xin Shiliang and Fu Bo naturally had no objection to this.
"Okay, Master, you go ahead and do your work first!"
Soon, Fang Lang finished copying the post. It must be said that Fang Lang's calligraphy has become much better after the training of his concubine Yingchun. At least it doesn't look messy anymore.
Fang Lang was naturally very satisfied with this. He put down the brush and couldn't help admiring himself for a while before nodding again with a smile on his face.
"Shiliang! I heard that you have been doing very well in your work recently!"
Fang Lang wiped his hands with a wet towel, walked out from behind the desk, and sat down on the rosewood armchair next to Xin Shiliang.
Although Xin Shiliang has great influence in the political circle, he has a clear understanding of his own positioning. He knows that the reason why he has such influence is due to Fang Lang's support. If Fang Lang is not satisfied with him, he can always replace him with someone else who can do as well as him.
Therefore, whether in front of Fang Xinshan or Fang Lang, he was always very humble and polite.
Hearing Fang Lang's praise for him, he was naturally very happy. He quickly stood up to greet him, bowed slightly to Fang Lang and said:
"Master, thank you for your compliment. All the little achievements Shiliang has made are due to your trust and support. If Master had not rescued me from the Japanese, Shiliang would have turned into a pile of bones.
How could I have the chance to live such a good life in Brazil with my young master by my side like I do now? "
In response to Xin Shiliang's modesty, Fang Lang just laughed, waved his hand indifferently, and motioned for the other party to sit down and talk.
"You don't have to be so modest. Don't I know whether you have the ability or not?"
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