Thursday at Ford begins, as ever, with a management pow-wow in the Thunderbird room. The latest meeting at the Dearborn, Michigan, HQ may be dominated by Ford’s planned disposal of Volvo to China’s Geely. Talks are reported to be faltering on concerns over piracy.

Such jitters are understandable. Great Wall vs Fiat, an intellectual property battle currently being played out in the Chinese company’s home province of Hebei, is the latest in a series of such clashes with western manufacturers.