Chinese Foreign Direct Investment and Chinese participation in infrastructure projects in São Paulo state, Brazil: an analysis from planetary urbanization and circuits of capital

Abstract

The purpose of this text is to investigate the relationship between Brazil and China from the perspective of the production of urban space. For this, Chinese Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) and Chinese participation in infrastructure projects in the state of São Paulo between 2000 and 2020 were analyzed. The study used the “incorporated comparison” developed by Philip McMichael and concepts such as planetary urbanization and circuits of capital. The hypothesis that the Chinese state starts to conform itself as an agent of Brazilian urbanization was evaluated to contribute to the debate around the dynamics of contemporary Brazilian urbanization. The collected data point to an important role of urbanization in the Chinese expansion process. Infrastructures have gained more importance over the last decade, in line with the transformations that the country went through after the turn of the century and the 2008 crisis, and which signals a turn towards the secondary circuit of capital in times of capital overaccumulation. Finally, some questions are asked about urban dynamics in the Global South, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Brazil.

Keywords:
FDI; China; Brazil; Planetary Urbanization; Circuits of Capital