The news out of Brazil last night was sad for the United States and the west in general. In a closely watched election that came down to only a couple of percentage points difference, it appears that Brazil’s corrupt, socialist former president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, will be returned to office. Jair Bolsonaro did not immediately concede defeat and had already questioned the legitimacy of the vote before it began, but barring some sort of post-election drama, he is probably on his way out. Bolsonaro was really the last South American leader with firm ties to America and da Silva rests almost entirely in the pocket of the Chinese Communist Party.

Brazilians delivered a very tight victory to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in a bitter presidential election, giving the leftist former president another shot at power in a rejection of incumbent Jair Bolsonaro’s far-right politics.

Da Silva received 50.9% of the vote and Bolsonaro 49.1%, according to the country’s election authority. Yet hours after the results were in — and congratulations poured in from world leaders — Bolsonaro had yet to publicly concede or react in any way.

Bolsonaro’s campaign had made repeated — unproven — claims of possible electoral manipulation before the vote, raising fears that, if he lost, he would not accept defeat and try to challenge the results.

So it would appear that Brazil’s voters have, by the narrowest of margins, chosen to follow their neighbors around South America down the path to complete socialism. That’s rather amazing to think about when they have had a front-row seat to how well that’s worked out for Venezuela. But it’s their country and they have to choose their own path and learn to live with the results.

Keep in mind the fact that while Lula da Silva was previously elected president, his reign was characterized by fraud and abuse. He was sent to prison for money laundering and corruption but was later released ahead of schedule by a friendly court. But somehow, through all of that turmoil, da Silva always maintained one of the highest approval ratings of any leader in Brazillian history.

As far as the China angle goes, da Silva’s election only puts an official ribbon on a process that was already underway. China has been buying up Brazil’s infrastructure for a couple of decades now. They control the majority of the power transmission lines in the country as well as most of the nation’s ports and shipping container movement. The CCP was already pretty much running Brazil at ground level, but now they have a willing puppet heading back to the president’s office to sign off on whatever they might wish to do.

If you want to take a deeper dive into precisely what China has been doing in Brazil and how they pulled this off, Fox News has a great half-hour documentary on the subject called The China Takeover: Brazil. It’s part of their Fox Nation streaming service, but if you’re not a subscriber you can sign up for a free two-week trial and watch it that way. You can always cancel before you need to pay for the service if you wish.

Best of luck to the people of Brazil. It’s one of the richest countries in the world in terms of natural resources and has a huge population that needs to be kept afloat. It’s just a shame to see China so easily wrest control of that country and expand its foothold in the western hemisphere.