Original subtitles

Hello and welcome to Global Eye,

bringing you the very best investigations and reporting

from BBC World Service teams around the globe.

I am Akisa Wandera, and I'm in Angola. In this week's programme,

from the ports of Angola to the factories of Brazil,

a global race is under way

for the control of the industries of the future.

But what does it mean for communities on the front line?

Coming up on the programme, billions of dollars are flowing into Angola

from international investors. I've come to find out

whether ordinary Angolans are seeing any of the rewards.

This Chinese car factory in Brazil is the biggest in Latin America.

Is it a sign that China is winning the battle

for supremacy in the industries of the future?

Now, this is Angola's Atlantic gateway.

Investors from the US, Europe and beyond are pouring billions

to this trade corridor, stretching from these shores

deep into the continent, linking some of the world's richest copper

and cobalt deposits to global markets.

Its supporters call it a pathway to prosperity.

Its critics see a pipeline of extraction away from the region.

I've been to find out what's at stake.

For more than a century, this railway has crossed Angola.

Today, it carries minerals the world increasingly wants.

But can it help Africa capture more value from its resources,

or will it simply move them to global markets faster?

Our journey begins here...

..the Port of Lobito.

This Atlantic gateway is where the railway meets the global economy.

And we arrived just as thousands of tonnes of copper

from the Democratic Republic of Congo were being unloaded.

Now, these blue containers have arrived here at the Port of Lobito

from the Democratic Republic of Congo by rail.

The use of railway has cut transit time by several weeks

if they were using road.

Traffic through the port is rising fast.

So, since we started in January '24, we have been doubling the...

..at least more than doubling the volume since we started.

To understand why this route matters,

you have to look beyond the port.

The Lobito Corridor is a rail and logistics network linking

some of the world's richest copper and cobalt reserves

to Angola's Atlantic coast. At its heart is the Benguela Railway,

running from Lobito across Angola

to the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo.

From there, it connects to the Congolese rail network

and the mining region around Kolwezi. There are also plans

to extend the network towards Zambia's Copperbelt,

although a direct railway connection

to Zambia is not yet in place.

The Lobito Corridor has become more than just a transport route.

It is also part of a wider competition for influence.

As China gets more and more invested

in Africa's infrastructure and minerals,

the West are recalibrating and relooking at their relationships

with Africa. So this is one way of getting back their influence

in Africa while also ring-fencing their interests in commodities

and minerals that are critical in the next wave of energy transitions.

The extraction of minerals from the Congo is not new.

The Benguela Railway was built under Portuguese colonial rule

to transport copper and other minerals from central Africa

to the Atlantic coast for export to global markets.

For decades, it was one of

the region's most important trade routes.

But decades of civil war devastated much of Angola's infrastructure,

leaving large sections of the line unusable.

The Angolan government began a major rehabilitation programme in 2006

with Chinese financing.

As developments continue along this corridor,

I was curious about communities that live along the railway line,

so I came here to Lobito to speak to some of them

and find out whether they've already started seeing

some benefits from this project.

Lobito Atlantic Railway says it directly employs

around 1,000 people, 98% of whom are Angolans.

But the ambitions surrounding the corridor

extend far beyond direct employment.

The larger prize is Angolan firms developing capabilities

in maintenance, engineering, warehousing, agricultural processing

and other services. Angola should measure success

not only by what passes through its territory,

but what grows within its economy.

Angola's foreign affairs minister told me

the country wants to break the model in which resources leave Africa

while much of the value is created elsewhere.

It is the same picture you find everywhere in Africa.

We have not developed because...just because the added value

is not created on the ground, you know?

It is created somewhere else.

African countries, right now, what they need to do is to

think more of reforming their policies.

Why not export maybe only 70%? And then the other 30% is retained

in Africa so that it can be invested in local industries.

The world's demand for copper and cobalt is unlikely to slow

as the transition to cleaner energy gathers pace.

For now, the trains keep moving,

carrying minerals towards global markets

and the promise of a different economic future for Central Africa.

But the real test is whether the wealth

moving along these tracks can also create opportunities

for the people and economies they pass through.

Now from Angola to Brazil, where the contest for economic influence

is playing out. In the state of Bahia,

China's biggest electric vehicle maker

has built the largest factory in Latin America,

bringing jobs, investments and growing Chinese influence.

But as this report from BBC Brasil reveals,

the arrival of BYD is raising questions about labour,

culture and the wider rivalry between China and the United States.

In early 2026, a wave of fake news swept across Brazil,

claiming that the state of Bahia in the north-east of the country

was under a Chinese invasion.

Videos shared on social media showed this housing complex,

allegedly built to accommodate thousands of Chinese workers

arriving for the newly inaugurated BYD factory

in the city of Camacari.

BYD is the Chinese auto-maker that surpassed Tesla in 2025

to become the world's largest electric vehicle manufacturer.

The company chose Camacari

as the site for its largest factory in Latin America.

In less than a year, more than 100,000 cars

have already rolled off its assembly lines.

Some of the locals joke that Camacari was turned into China-cari.

But is that true? BBC News Brasil went there to see

the impact this factory has had on the local area, and we looked at

how this story fits into a much bigger one -

the largest transformation of the car industry in a century

and the rivalry between the United States and China.

The Chinese presence is actually hard to spot

in Camacari, an industrial city of 300,000 inhabitants.

Since construction began on the BYD factory in 2024,

the number of visas issued to Chinese citizens has risen,

though not dramatically.

Brazilian federal police records show just over 2,000

Chinese nationals, most of them on temporary visas. That's not many,

and they don't live concentrated in a specific neighbourhood.

There's no Chinatown here.

Cassia is a real-estate agent. Today she works almost exclusively

with Chinese clients, many of whom live in the same residential complex

as she does, where rents have risen by about 50%.

Valquiria has also crossed paths with the Chinese newcomers.

Until recently, she worked at an appliance store.

Now she hopes to work alongside them. She's a student

in a new automotive operations course at this training centre,

created to prepare local workers for jobs at the new factory.

Valquiria has lived in Camacari since 2019.

She arrived from the city of Riachao do Jacuipe,

also in the state of Bahia,

with a dream of working for a different auto-maker, Ford.

And here's the twist - BYD now occupies the very site

where Ford operated until 2021.

It bought the plant from the American auto-maker.

Valquiri's is one of many stories here

that connect the city's past to its present and to the global forces

that brought BYD to this region of Brazil.

Her instructor, Gelso, has also worked for Ford

and now trains locals that want to apply for BYD jobs.

The Ford plant was the first major auto-maker factory

in Brazil's north-east. It opened in 2001

and at its peak in 2013 produced 250,000 cars a year.

Ford said it was hit hard by Brazil's economic slow-down

in the following years and never fully recovered.

In January 2021, in the middle of the pandemic,

it announced it would close all its factories in Brazil.

He decided to stay because his family didn't want to leave Bahia.

Gelso also opened an auto repair shop and began teaching

at the local technical training centre.

Then came an invitation to spend 50 days at BYD factories in China,

training to become an instructor for a new course.

One experience in particular left a lasting impression -

visiting a highly automated factory with almost no human workers.

China's rise to the top of the auto industry

has caught many by surprise.

This is a strategic sector, one that until recently

was dominated by American, European, Japanese and South Korean companies.

And this is why behind this story lies a much bigger one -

the contest between world powers to lead the electric vehicle market.

The modern car industry was born in the United States.

Its first revolution came in 1913,

when Henry Ford introduced the moving assembly line

and made mass production of cars possible.

More than a century later, the industry is going through

another transformation,

one that is changing how cars are powered and built.

Gasoline engines are gradually giving way to electric motors.

This is a strategic shift

in a world already grappling with climate change.

Analysts say the country that leads it

will be best placed to set the technology standards of

the future and to shape the balance of industrial power.

The United States had an early lead.

Tesla turned electric cars into a mainstream product.

But in 2025, China's BYD

overtook it to become

the world's largest seller

of fully electric vehicles.

In this first round, China has come out on top.

This is Rogelio Golfarb. He spent decades as a Ford executive

in Brazil, led the country's carmakers' association, Anfavea,

and now works as a consultant.

Rogelio says Chinese auto-makers focused on innovation,

not imitation.

They also built on a massive vertically integrated model

in which brands make almost every component themselves,

from batteries to chips. That, he says,

has given Chinese electric cars a huge competitive edge.

Chinese auto-makers dominate their home market,

but as they looked abroad, the United States and Europe

began raising tariffs on Chinese electric cars,

citing unfair state subsidies.

That made Latin America and Brazil in particular a strategic market.

They came, and Brazilian consumers embraced them.

This shift was quick.

Since the BYD factory opened in October 2025,

the plant, still under construction, has assembled over 100,000 cars

using kits of parts imported from China.

The factory now employs about 8,000 people,

the vast majority of them Brazilian.

That's a far cry from the Chinese city described in the videos.

Full made-in-Brazil production is expected by the end of the year.

That's Julio Bonfim, president of the Camacari Metalworkers' Union,

a position he has held since the Ford era.

He says tensions on the factory floor have grown

as fast as production.

According to Julio, that includes pressure and harsh treatment

from supervisors and obstacles to labour union activities.

The BBC asked several times to visit the factory but wasn't allowed in.

Workers we approached declined to be interviewed,

saying they feared retaliation.

The union held its first work stoppage at BYD in July 2026.

According to Julio, 2,700 workers headed home in protest

after two union leaders received formal warnings.

The company denies any wrongdoing,

stating to the BBC that it doesn't tolerate any form of harassment,

discrimination or conduct that violates the law.

BYD also says it respects Brazilian labour laws

and the right to free trade union association.

Even before it opened,

the factory was at the centre of a labour scandal.

In December 2024,

Brazilian authorities rescued 163 Chinese construction workers

from what Brazilian law calls "conditions analogous to slavery" -

degrading housing, exhausting hours and restricted freedom.

The workers had been hired by Chinese contractors,

but labour inspectors concluded

that BYD was also directly responsible.

In late 2025, BYD and the contractors

reached a $7.5 million settlement with labour prosecutors

without admitting guilt.

In a statement to the BBC, the company said that contractors

would pay the settlement without commenting about

the rescued workers' labour conditions.

This year, a US-based labour rights group made similar allegations

about the construction of BYD's factory in Hungary,

involving some of the same contractors. BYD denied any abuse.

The laboratory Chinese auto-makers have built in Brazil

is the latest chapter in a relationship

that has grown much closer in recent decades.

Back in 2009, China became

Brazil's number-one trade partner,

surpassing the United States.

And last year, Brazil was once again

the top destination

for Chinese investments worldwide.

But the relationship goes beyond the economy.

Alice was a student in the first class of Mandarin

opened at the Confucius Institute in Salvador,

Bahia's capital, in 2023.

This is a global network linked to the Chinese government

that promotes the teaching of Mandarin and Chinese culture.

There are 14 of them in Brazil today.

She first signed up because she loved the film

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

She was about to graduate in social sciences

but ended up changing careers.

Alice has had five Chinese students.

One of them supplies machinery to another massive project

being built in Bahia by a Chinese-led consortium -

the Salvador-Itaparica Bridge, which will span 12.4km

and become the longest bridge over a body of water in Latin America.

Between 2023 and 2025, the number of work-related residence permits

issued to Chinese citizens in Brazil more than tripled,

rising from 3,000 to 10,000 last year.

The growing relationship with China has become a flash point

in Brazil's political divide between left and right,

especially as China positions itself

as the main rival of the United States

and since Donald Trump's return to the White House.

It was in this polarised atmosphere

that the Chinese invasion video spread.

Brazilian fact-checkers found the claims to be false.

At the time, BYD told them

the complex would house Brazilian workers.

The political divide remains, and now enters a new chapter.

On October 25th, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva

was re-elected for a fourth term, defeating in a runoff

Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, son of former President Jair Bolsonaro,

after finishing behind him in the first round.

Lula will have to navigate a world

in which the two largest economies see Brazil as strategic -

as a large consumer market, a major food supplier

and home to some of the world's largest reserves

of rare earth minerals. For the rest of the world,

Brazil is a test case for what happens

when a country opens so many sectors to Chinese investment.

In Camacari, some residents hope their city's future

will look like the high-tech Chinese cities they're learning about.

Claudio Lira is one of them.

He also teaches at the training centre.

Before 1980, Shenzhen was mostly farmland and fishing villages.

Today it's China's technology hub.

Claudio has had a long career

working for foreign auto-makers in Brazil,

and took part in the same training program in China as Gelso.

But he may need a little time to get used to the electric future.

Here's some more content from the World Service this week

that will help you make sense of the world.

As Democrats rode a blue wave to victory

in America's midterm elections,

taking control of both Houses of Congress,

there's been plenty of commentary about how this will affect America.

But the Global Story podcast has looked at the impact

on the rest of the world. Will Democrats now challenge

President Trump's foreign policy agenda,

from the wars in Iran and Ukraine

to America's relationships with its allies and adversaries?

You can catch The Global Story on BBC Sounds

or wherever you get your podcasts.

And finally, from the race to build the cars of the future

to a sport that pushes today's technology to its limits.

Top Fuel drag-racing is the fastest motorsport on earth,

where drivers routinely exceed 300mph.

It is also one of the few sports

where women compete directly against men on equal terms.

And in Europe, they're increasingly leading the field.

BBC Global Women followed reigning European champion

Susanne Callin as she bid to retain her title.

SUSANNE: Drag racing is the fastest sport on earth.

Starting at standstill

and mainly going as quick as you possibly can to the end,

and the first one who gets there wins.

You literally cannot explain it unless you've done it,

because I don't know anything that is even close to it.

My goal for this weekend is to get my second championship.

I won last year, so we want to do them back-to-back.

The signal, I think, has been given to the teams

to get ready to fire 'em up. It has indeed. And here we go.

Once the engine starts, for me, everything just gets, like, quiet.

We start up.

Then you floor it.

My cars never stop accelerating.

Literally about 100m, 200m out, it's almost like a new start,

because that's when the clutch locks up.

I don't know when that is coming.

But then all of a sudden it's like, "This is going to be good now."

And like, "Now we're going to get going."

Through the finish line,

we hit the parachutes.

That is like going into, like, a wall.

That one, I mean, it hurts. You do lose your breath.

They were absolutely going for it.

If you don't have a good car that gets down the track,

it doesn't matter how good you are as a driver.

I have a crew that, uh, they're all English.

Five, six guys who all have their own set parts on the car.

And then also my dad, who crews

and helps out with the car and does everything.

Good flight?

Same as usual. Yeah.

My dad and my uncle, they raced since I was little,

so I came with them to the racetrack all the time.

Was I annoying?

It was very annoying.

It was you and your sister and your mum. No!

Jacqueline, the youngest, she is really into it.

So she's racing this weekend.

This is her first year in a big class.

So when she was 18,

she started going over 250km/h on that short distance.

So that is a pretty good kick.

She only got her driving licence

this summer, so...

She was doing 250 on the racetrack

but I was driving her around,

you know, back and home to the track.

How did your last run go? Did you have two runs today?

Terrible. I broke it. You broke it?

I mean, the safety is a big issue.

Of course, the concern is always there, but I wouldn't...

I would not, you know, be able to put my kids in a car

if I was worried about it at all.

And the thing with all the drag-racing cars,

they are considering extremely safe.

Even though there's massive crashes sometimes,

it's actually very unusual for anything to go really bad.

I never feel I've been underestimated

or treated badly for being a woman in a male-dominated sport,

and I'm absolutely shocked

when in these, like, Formula 1 surveys,

when they say how they get treated or, you know, pushed off the tracks.

No, no.

If you go around the pits, they're just normal to us.

From Switzerland, Jndia Erbacher. From Sweden, Susanne Callin.

Let's go.

Susanne with a massive holeshot.

Side by side the whole way.

Susanne!

4.09 beats a 3.97 on a huge holeshot.

Massive holeshot. Absolutely huge.

Was that worth waiting for?

I'll take that as a yes.

Susanne is European champion in FIA Top Fuel.

THEY CHEER

INDISTINCT CHATTER

And you're going in for third next year?

I think we might be.

That's not been done, three in a row, so we'll see.

Thanks for joining me in Angola.

Global Eye will be back next week. Goodbye.