Applying Grounded Theory to the Macro-Level Analysis of Brazil–China Interaction in Green Value Chains

Abstract

The global expansion of electric vehicles, led by China, redefines production chains and intensifies the Brazil-China economic relationship. The objective of this study is to examine how Chinese investments in this sector influence public policies and the bilateral bond. Methodologically, qualitative analysis with grounded theory and coding in specialized software was employed, applied to 41 high-level official documents covering the period from 2004 to 2025, including plans, minutes, and memoranda of Brazil-China cooperation. Results indicate that the energy matrix appears strongly linked to mining and infrastructure, while electric mobility figures in a peripheral and episodic manner. Sustainability and energy transition are treated in a utilitarian way, more as a discursive frame to legitimize logistics projects and access to strategic minerals than as the organizing axis of actions. A predominance of codes related to raw material exports and input dependence was found, without concrete counterpart in technology transfer or industrial diversification. It is thus considered that bilateral initiatives, although carrying green rhetoric, reinforce a neo-extractivist pattern that keeps Brazil in a subordinate position as a supplier of natural resources, showing that the sustainability discourse functions as a programmatic envelope for the continuity of extractive and infrastructural dynamics.