Chinese brands are sweeping the world. Good

From Stockholm to Sydney, the electric car gliding silently by is increasingly likely to be Chinese. Mixue, a purveyor of ice-cream and cold drinks, has dethroned McDonald’s as the world’s largest fast-food chain by number of outlets. It is expanding in South America, as is Meituan, a Beijing-based delivery app. Chagee, a chain of tea shops, is on track to have at least 1,300 stores outside China by the end of 2027, mainly in South-East Asia; a few years ago it had barely any. And Pop Mart, a Chinese toymaker, has created a buzz worthy of Disney around its strange grinning (or are they grimacing?) nine-toothed dolls, called Labubus. Fans include Rihanna, a pop star, and Sir David Beckham, a retired footballer.

Western shoppers have bought goods made in China for decades. But these were largely made for, and designed by, foreign firms. More recently, internet retailers such as Shein and Temu have won over customers with cheap, cheerful clothes and consumer goods, while downplaying their Chinese origins. Chinese brands were long seen as poor-quality, unimaginative and unfairly subsidised. Scandals around food safety and labour standards did not help.

New firms are now overturning those old assumptions. Many happily advertise their roots. The logo of Chagee shows a Peking Opera singer in full headdress. (The firm’s name derives from “Farewell, My Concubine", a traditional Chinese opera.) “Black Myth: Wukong", one of the most successful video games ever, features the Monkey King from “Journey to the West", a 16th-century novel. Many brands now compete on quality as well as price. Chagee’s drinks can be as costly as Starbucks’. Chinese EVs offer dazzling entertainment systems as well as low prices. Pop Mart’s toys can cost as much as $835.

In the past, Chinese firms typically succeeded by learning to replicate Western products cheaply. Now they are accumulating valuable intellectual property of their own. And though state media outlets laud Labubus, the government does little to subsidise these new consumer firms (with the exception of electric-carmakers). Indeed, China’s capital markets, which are tasked with nurturing technologies to beat America, are stacked against them. Consumer firms have received only 3% of the capital raised in listings on the mainland over the past two years. Chipmakers have taken five times as much.

The rise of Chinese consumer brands is good for shoppers everywhere: they now have a wider array of innovative products to choose from. Investors, too, should welcome the sight of oddly mesmerising dolls and the taste of red-bean ice-cream. Investing in Chinese technology companies has long been politically hard because of security worries on both sides. If DeepSeek, China’s breakthrough AI firm, were to go public, American investors would be unlikely to get a piece of the action. And TikTok is still stuck in legal limbo. But handbags and hot drinks are harmless. Even as the trade war erupted in April, Chagee went public in New York, raising more than $400m to fuel its global expansion. Many more brands have listed in Hong Kong, or plan to do so.

Western firms will have to wake up and smell the bubble tea. Within China, the premium that foreign brands command simply for being foreign is eroding. In the future they will need to try harder to understand Chinese customers’ particular tastes. Some may even do deals with inventive Chinese partners, to gain insight and inspiration. These are still early days for Chinese marques’ foray into global markets. But Chinese carmakers are already forcing Western rivals to reconsider their strategies. And competition from China may eventually push Disney, Mattel and other Western mega-brands to new heights of creativity. Chinese brands’ westward journey, like the Monkey King’s, could bring lavish rewards.

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