Recent visits to China by Biden administration officials have sought to humanize the bilateral relationship and broaden it out beyond the tensions on display between the two governments. With limited access to uncensored information in China and people-to-people exchanges at very low levels, this is harder than perhaps ever before.
Last year, Chinese automaker BYD clinched a deal to take over Ford Motor’s factory in Bahia, Brazil, after Ford decided to withdraw from the Brazilian market. BYD is already the world’s largest producer of electric vehicles, and the move into Brazil is an effort to further consolidate its early conquest of EV markets in the Global South.
A common understanding of why U.S.-China relations have cratered since the 2016 election of former President Donald Trump is that the world’s two largest economies had gone from being complementary to being increasingly competitive and zero-sum. But even in this economic relationship, there are still ways to find common ground.
