How geopolitical tensions could disrupt the global car industry

THE WORLD’S carmakers are nowadays perforce learning from Chinese car firms and their customers what the future might look like. Similarly, Chinese carmakers are trying to understand what they need to do to conquer the West. Just as big firms have engineering and design centres in China, so do Chinese firms in America and Europe. But even as foreign carmakers begin to struggle in China, Chinese hopes of selling millions of cars abroad may fall foul of a deteriorating political landscape. A souring of relations between America and China means rising geopolitical tensions, new trade barriers, a subsidy race, shifting supply chains and tighter restrictions on access to Western technology and data-sharing. These could even add up to the deglobalisation of what is in many ways the archetypal global industry.