Media365
For decades, China’s role in the global economy was easy to define. It made things cheaply and at astonishing scale. “Made in China” became shorthand for industrial capacity. It was often contentious, sometimes admired, sometimes feared.
That division is now eroding. In smartphones, electric vehicles (EVs) and digital services, Chinese firms are climbing the value chain, competing with Western companies and, in many sectors, leading globally. But the next China shock may take a different form.
Call it China Shock 2.0 or 3.0, depending on how you count them, but China is no longer just manufacturing the world’s products. It is increasingly manufacturing the world’s preferences, too. Especially among younger consumers, Chinese brands are shaping tastes, aesthetics and the global image of China.
Geopolitically, this shift matters. Competition between China and the West is no longer confined to trade and technology. It is increasingly playing out in the realm of cultural imagination. If tariffs and export controls are tools of hard power rivalry, brands are tools of soft power. The question is how to compete with China in the latter arena.
