The economic partnership between Brazil and China has become a cornerstone of South-South cooperation, transforming trade dynamics since the early 2000s. By 2023, bilateral commerce totaled USD 159.6 billion, with China absorbing close to 30 percent of Brazil’s total exports, solidifying its role as the largest trading partner. Despite these robust figures, analysts are increasingly scrutinizing the long-term developmental consequences of this relationship, particularly regarding industrial decline and uneven regional growth within Brazil.
Recent academic work, including Lucas Peixoto Pinheiro da Silva’s 2025 study, reflects a shift from early optimism to a more critical evaluation of how deepening ties with China affect Brazil’s economic structure. Initially, scholars viewed the partnership as a chance to diversify export markets away from traditional Western economies. The demand for raw materials from China was seen as aligning well with Brazil’s strengths in agriculture and mineral extraction, offering a path to balanced growth among developing nations.
However, by the mid-2010s, research began highlighting adverse structural effects. Rhys Jenkins’ influential 2015 paper questioned whether Chinese competition contributed to Brazil’s relative deindustrialization—a trend marked by a shrinking share of manufacturing in GDP. His findings indicated that Brazilian manufactured goods faced displacement in global markets due to rising Chinese exports, with currency appreciation amplifying the impact.
Further studies revealed a growing concentration of Latin American exports in primary commodities. By 2013, about 80 percent of the region’s shipments to China consisted of just five products: oil, soybeans, iron ore, copper, and sugar—up from 47 percent in 2000. This phenomenon, termed “reprimarization,” raises concerns about long-term economic diversification and resilience.
Contemporary analysis now emphasizes spatial disparities in how the benefits of trade are distributed. Silva’s research underscores that agricultural expansion driven by Chinese demand has disproportionately favored certain regions, exacerbating internal inequalities. This territorial dimension adds depth to understanding who gains and who is left behind in the integration process.
Scholars are also examining domestic policy responses. Initiatives such as Brazil’s Ecological Transformation Plan and technological collaboration agreements with China reflect attempts to steer engagement toward higher-value outcomes. Institutional frameworks are seen as crucial in determining whether foreign economic ties lead to dependency or development.
Theoretical approaches have evolved beyond simplistic dependency models. Instead, researchers apply concepts like asymmetric interdependence, which acknowledges mutual gains while recognizing unequal power dynamics. Global value chain analysis further reveals limited instances of technology transfer—such as BYD’s electric bus production in Brazil—though these remain outliers in an otherwise commodity-focused trade relationship.
Environmental considerations are gaining prominence. Studies are assessing how Chinese demand influences deforestation, biodiversity loss, and carbon emissions in Brazil, introducing sustainability concerns into the broader economic debate.
Overall, current scholarship calls for proactive industrial strategies to diversify exports, strengthen regional linkages, and promote sectors with greater complexity. Without deliberate policy intervention, Brazil risks entrenching a peripheral role in the global economy. As the relationship evolves, academic insights will remain vital for shaping equitable and sustainable development pathways.
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China Economic Relations: A Critical Assessment of Contemporary Scholarship
The economic relationship between Brazil and China has emerged as one of the most significant bilateral partnerships in the Global South, fundamentally reshaping both countries’ development trajectories since the early 2000s.
As China became Brazil’s largest trading partner, bilateral trade reached USD 159.6 billion in 2023, with China accounting for nearly a third of Brazil’s exports. However, beneath these impressive headline figures lies a complex web of economic dependencies, structural transformations, and development challenges that have generated intense academic debate.
Recent scholarship, exemplified by Lucas Peixoto Pinheiro da Silva’s analysis of Brazil-China relations, highlights growing concerns about the developmental implications of this deepening partnership. Silva’s work contributes to a rich body of literature that has evolved from initial optimism about South-South cooperation to more nuanced assessments of asymmetric interdependence and its consequences for Brazilian industrialization.
This article examines how contemporary scholarship has analyzed Brazil-China economic relations, positioning Silva’s recent contribution within the broader academic discourse while identifying key themes, debates, and theoretical frameworks that have shaped understanding of this critical relationship.
The Evolution of Academic Perspectives
The initial phase of academic analysis, roughly spanning from 2001 to 2010, was characterized by considerable optimism about the potential for mutually beneficial South-South cooperation.
China’s entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001 marked the beginning of robust economic ties with Latin America, with trade growing at an annual rate of 31 percent between 2000 and 2008. Early scholarship emphasized complementarity, viewing China’s demand for raw materials as a natural fit with Latin America’s comparative advantages in agriculture and mining.
This optimistic perspective portrayed the relationship as offering Latin American countries, particularly Brazil, an alternative to traditional dependence on North American and European markets. The narrative of “South-South cooperation” suggested that developing countries could forge more equitable partnerships based on shared historical experiences and mutual respect for sovereignty. (1)
By the mid-2010s, a more critical scholarly consensus began to emerge, fundamentally challenging earlier optimistic assessments. Rhys Jenkins’s seminal 2015 study, “Is Chinese Competition Causing Deindustrialization in Brazil?”, marked a turning point in academic analysis. Jenkins argued that “Brazil has experienced relative deindustrialization in the sense of a declining share of the manufacturing sector in gross domestic product that is mainly attributable to the changes in the country’s trade balance in manufactures,” with Chinese competition playing a significant role in this process. (2)
This shift toward critical analysis coincided with empirical evidence of what scholars termed “reprimarization” or “re-primarization” or the increasing concentration of exports in primary commodities. Research demonstrated that by 2013, approximately 80% of Latin America’s exports to China were concentrated in just five primary products: oil, soybeans, iron ore, copper, and sugar, representing a significant increase from 47% in 2000. (3)
The most recent phase of scholarship, including Silva’s 2025 analysis, has moved beyond binary assessments to examine the specific conditions under which Brazil-China relations either support or undermine Brazilian development objectives. This contemporary literature is characterized by several key features:
Territorial and Spatial Analysis: Recent scholarship has increasingly focused on the uneven spatial distribution of benefits from Brazil-China economic integration. Silva’s emphasis on how export-led agricultural growth has been “highly uneven across the country, with certain areas capturing the lion’s share of benefits” reflects a broader academic interest in the territorial dimensions of reprimarization. (4)
Institutional and Policy Focus: Contemporary studies examine how domestic institutions and policy frameworks shape the developmental outcomes of China engagement. Research on Brazil’s recent industrial policy initiatives, including the Ecological Transformation Plan (ETP) and technological cooperation agreements with China, represents this institutionally-focused approach. (5)
Asymmetric Interdependence: Modern scholarship has adopted more sophisticated theoretical frameworks for understanding Brazil-China relations. Rather than viewing the relationship through simple dependency or mutual benefit lenses, contemporary analysis employs concepts of asymmetric interdependence that recognize both countries’ agency while acknowledging structural power imbalances. (6)
Key Themes in Contemporary Scholarship
Deindustrialization and Structural Transformation
The question of whether China’s rise has contributed to Brazilian deindustrialization remains central to academic debate. Multiple studies have documented Brazil’s declining share of global manufacturing value-added, with research showing an average annual decline of 0.73 percent between 2012 and 2022. However, scholars disagree about the extent to which this deindustrialization should be attributed directly to Chinese competition versus broader structural factors.
Jenkins’s research provides empirical evidence that “Chinese manufacturing exports directly displaced Brazilian exports” in third-country markets, with currency appreciation serving as an important transmission channel. (7) This finding supports arguments that Chinese competition has indeed contributed to Brazil’s industrial decline, though the magnitude and mechanisms of this impact remain subjects of ongoing research.
The Commodity Dependence Debate
Academic analysis of Brazil’s commodity dependence has evolved considerably since the early 2000s. While initial scholarship viewed high commodity prices as unambiguously beneficial for Brazil, more recent analysis has emphasized the structural limitations of commodity-dependent growth models.
Research by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) argues that Brazil’s commodity dependence leads to “low growth, macroeconomic instability, and difficulties in raising productivity and diversifying the composition of the country’s economy.” (8) This perspective aligns with Silva’s argument that Brazil’s reliance on extractive exports may be “accelerating its deindustrialisation, undermining economic diversification and complexity.”
Spatial Inequality and Regional Development
One of Silva’s most significant contributions to the literature is his emphasis on how Brazil-China economic integration affects spatial inequality within Brazil. This territorial dimension has received less attention in earlier scholarship but represents an important avenue for understanding the domestic distributional consequences of international economic integration.
Recent research on “territorial reprimarization” has examined how “the re-specialization in natural resource-intensive primary goods” creates distinct patterns of regional development, with some areas benefiting significantly while others remain excluded from growth processes. (9) This spatial perspective adds important nuance to aggregate assessments of Brazil-China economic relations.
Theoretical Frameworks and Analytical Approaches
Dependency Theory Revival
Contemporary scholarship on Brazil-China relations has witnessed a notable revival of dependency theory concepts, though applied in more sophisticated ways than earlier dependency analyses. Rather than viewing dependency as a static condition, recent studies examine how different forms of economic integration can either reinforce or challenge dependent relationships.
Silva’s analysis exemplifies this neo-dependency approach, arguing that Brazil risks “becoming locked into a peripheral role in the global economy” without strategic policy interventions. This perspective recognizes agency and policy choice while maintaining attention to structural constraints imposed by global economic hierarchies.
Asymmetric Interdependence Theory
Recent scholarship has increasingly employed asymmetric interdependence theory to understand Brazil-China relations. This framework, developed in international relations literature, recognizes that while both countries benefit from economic integration, the distribution of benefits and costs may be highly uneven.
Research applying this framework to Brazil-China relations emphasizes that “an asymmetric relationship does not imply that the larger side can unilaterally dictate the terms of the relationship,” while acknowledging that Brazil faces greater vulnerabilities due to its smaller economic size and higher dependence on the bilateral relationship. (10)
Global Value Chain Analysis
Contemporary scholarship has also employed global value chain (GVC) analysis to understand Brazil’s position in China-centered production networks. This approach examines how Brazil’s integration into Chinese-led value chains affects its opportunities for industrial upgrading and technological development.
Research in this tradition has identified specific sectors and companies, such as BYD’s electric bus manufacturing operations in Brazil, where bilateral cooperation has facilitated technology transfer and industrial development. (11) However, these success stories remain exceptions within a broader pattern of commoditized trade relations.
Policy Implications and Future Research Directions
Contemporary scholarship has increasingly focused on identifying policy frameworks that could enable Brazil to derive greater developmental benefits from its relationship with China. Silva’s call for “deliberate efforts to diversify its export base, strengthen regional linkages, and promote sectors with higher economic complexity” reflects broader academic consensus about the need for proactive industrial policy.
Recent research has examined Brazil’s attempts to implement such policies, including analysis of the country’s National Investment Bank (NIB) and various industrial policy initiatives designed to promote technological upgrading and export diversification. (12)
An emerging theme in contemporary scholarship concerns the environmental implications of Brazil-China economic integration. Research has examined how Chinese demand for Brazilian commodities affects deforestation patterns, carbon emissions, and biodiversity conservation.
This environmental dimension adds additional complexity to assessments of Brazil-China relations, as scholars grapple with tensions between short-term economic benefits and long-term sustainability objectives. (13)
Conclusion
The academic literature on Brazil-China economic relations has evolved significantly since the early 2000s, moving from initial optimism about South-South cooperation to more nuanced assessments of asymmetric interdependence and its developmental implications.
Silva’s recent contribution exemplifies the current state of scholarship: analytically sophisticated, empirically grounded, and focused on identifying specific conditions under which Brazil-China integration can support rather than undermine Brazilian development objectives.
Contemporary scholarship has made several important contributions to understanding this relationship.
First, it has documented the extent and mechanisms through which Chinese engagement has contributed to Brazilian deindustrialization and export reprimarization.
Second, it has highlighted the spatial and distributional consequences of economic integration, showing how benefits and costs are unevenly distributed across Brazilian territory and social groups.
Third, it has identified specific policy frameworks and institutional arrangements that might enable Brazil to capture greater developmental benefits from its relationship with China.
As Brazil and China continue to deepen their economic relationship, academic scholarship could play a crucial role in informing policy debates and development strategies.
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Footnotes
1. Javier A. Vadell, Giuseppe Lo Brutto, and Marília Silva de Oliveira Leite, “Dragon in the ‘backyard’: China’s investment and trade in Latin America in the context of crisis,” Brazilian Journal of Political Economy 40, no. 4 (2020): 580-601.
2 Rhys Jenkins, “Is Chinese Competition Causing Deindustrialization in Brazil?,” Latin American Perspectives 42, no. 6 (2015): 42-63.
3 ECLAC (Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean), “Latin America and the Caribbean and China: Towards a New Phase in Economic and Trade Relations,” 2015.
4 Lucas Peixoto Pinheiro da Silva, “Brazil, China, and the New Geography of Development,” University of São Paulo and King’s College London, June 12, 2025.
5 Phenomenal World, “State and Development,” February 17, 2025, https://www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/state-and-development/.
6 Thiago P. B. Bessimo and Octavio Amorim Neto, “The Brazilian Extreme-Right and China,” International Politics 61 (2024): 542-565.
7 Rhys Jenkins, “Exports of manufactured goods and structural change: Brazil in the face of Chinese competition,” Structural Change and Economic Dynamics 63 (2022): 473-486.
8 Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, “Why Brazil Sought Chinese Investments to Diversify Its Manufacturing Economy,” October 18, 2022.
9 Regional Studies Association, “Territorial reprimarization: Questions regarding regional development and urbanization in Brazil,” October 22, 2024.
10 Bessimo and Amorim Neto, “The Brazilian Extreme-Right and China.” https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1866802X241263362
11 Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, “Why Brazil Sought Chinese Investments to Diversify Its Manufacturing Economy.”
12 Phenomenal World, “State and Development.”
13 Cambridge Core, “Re-Primarization All Over Again? Extraction and Resistance in Twenty-First-Century Latin America,” Latin American Research Review 59, no. 3 (2024): 690-696.