China and Brazilian deindustrialization: a look beyond regressive specialization

Abstract The article analyzes how the strengthening of trade relations between Brazil and China, since the 2000s, has caused the deepening of two characteristic phenomena of the Brazilian economy since the 1980s: regressive specialization and deindustrialization. In particular, in addition to the impacts, which have been widely analyzed, regarding the Chinese role in productive specialization in the recent period, it is argued that these effects are extended to the densification of the productive structure. Based on the adaptation of industrial densification indicators - the manufacturing densification coefficient (CDIT) and the relative participation coefficient in the densification (CPRD) - using the World Input-Output Database (WIOD) as a database, the article points out how the Chinese advance occurred transversally (increased participation in all sectors analyzed) and heterogeneous (an important sectorial bias in this Chinese advance is observed) in the Brazilian manufacturing