Led by the automaker BYD, China has established itself as the main car supplier in Mexico. The US worries China could use Mexico as a “back door” to sidestep tariffs and gain footing in the US market.

Foreign investment would be an economic boost for Mexico. The company has claimed that a plant there would create about 10,000 jobs. A Tesla competitor, BYD markets its Dolphin Mini model in Mexico for about 398,800 pesos—about $21,300 dollars—a little more than half the price of the cheapest Tesla model.

  • @prole@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    4•4 months ago

    Surely if the products were shit, then there would be nothing to worry about with respect to China’s power. No?

    • @CanadaPlusEnglish
      4•4 months ago

      If they’re shit today, they probably won’t be tomorrow. They’re just as capable of bootstrapping as the next person.

      Back in the 90’s Clinton was quoted as saying that with capitalism and development, democracy would inevitably follow in China; trying to stop it would be like nailing jello to a wall. Nobody thinks that way anymore.

      • @prole@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        1•4 months ago

        I don’t really understand your point… I wasn’t making any comment about democracy in China. That’s absurd.

        • @CanadaPlusEnglish
          2•4 months ago

          To clarify, the reason China was allowed to gain that amount of economic influence in the first place was because it was thought they’d be part of the democratic West. Without that, nobody wants an authoritarian superpower.

            • @CanadaPlusEnglish
              1•3 months ago

              Belt and Road is waaay more recent than what I’m talking about, being declared in 2013. The Cold War ramped down in the 80’s and ended around '90 or so, and then the triumphalist narrative that “history had ended” and democracy had irrevocably won was influential in the 90’s and arguably 2000’s.

              Also, I’m not really sure “expansionism” is the right word for peacefully growing one’s economy and soft power. Otherwise, the West is expansionist as hell, and that undersells actual territorial expansionism like in Taiwan or Ukraine.