Europe Is Losing the High Street, the Driveway, and Soon Its Strategic Voice
February 4, 2026
Europe looks at the world as if the rules of the game were still the same as twenty years ago. Yet while we debate, regulate, and hesitate, China executes a strategy that spans generations and reshapes our retail sector, our industry, our logistics, and ultimately our geopolitical room for maneuver. In Europe and the United States, policy shifts with elections. First Trump, then Biden, now Trump again. Europe follows the same pattern: one coalition sets a course, the next reverses it. We operate in a zigzagging democracy, a logic of constant movement and limited progress.
One Belt, One Road
China has followed a single, straight line for more than thirty years. One Belt, One Road is neither a project nor a slogan, but a global structural agenda that secures trade routes, logistics hubs, and digital corridors for decades. Within that system, Chinese companies do not act as isolated commercial adventurers. They function as links within one national logic and ultimately report to the same state. That reality makes many Europeans uncomfortable, yet it also explains why China accelerates while Europe treads water.
The consequences of that strategy appear most clearly in retail. While European brands consolidate, restructure, or lose market share, China systematically acquires the links in the chain. Jack Wolfskin moves to Anta Sports. Puma is on the table, with interest from Anta, Li Ning, and even Asics. These are not opportunistic transactions but components of a structured expansion. Anta already owns Amer Sports, the parent company of Salomon, Wilson, and Arc’teryx, and builds its ecosystem the way Europe once built factories: with patience, capital, and a clearly defined objective. European owners such as the Pinault family withdraw when volatility rises. Chinese buyers enter precisely at that moment because they operate with a horizon that extends beyond the next quarter. China does not buy brands out of nostalgia or prestige. It buys scale, distribution, and strategic anchor points in Europe.
Stores are Mere Datapoints
JD.com follows the same logic, but at infrastructure level. The acquisition of Ceconomy may appear on paper as a conventional retail deal, yet in practice it represents a logistical power move. For European consumers, MediaMarkt and Saturn are stores; for JD, they are nodes in a dense network of data flows, distribution hubs, and predictive algorithms. JD often knows what will be ordered before a consumer even asks. It identifies where demand will increase and which products will end up in the same basket. This no longer resembles traditional commerce but an infrastructure model that Europe never built itself. While European chains struggle with their omnichannel strategies, JD treats physical stores as extensions of a data platform. The store becomes a warehouse, the sale becomes a dataset, and the consumer becomes a signal source. Europe structurally underestimates that philosophy.
The same pattern appears with Shein, Temu, and AliExpress. When Shein opens a store in Paris, France erupts in protest. Yet the store does not exist primarily to sell. It functions as a measurement point, a funnel, a node in a data stream. Young consumers come to look, try on, film, post, and click. Every movement generates data. That data feeds the algorithm that disrupts the fashion industry. Shein does not design clothing in the traditional sense; it generates code that determines what gets produced, in what quantities, and for how long it remains available. The store serves as a stage prop in a vast digital machine. Protests create queues, queues create posts, posts generate data, and data produces scale. Europe responds with lawsuits and fines, while Shein already knows what will hang in closets next month before European brands finalize their seasonal designs.
Made in Italy, China
What often goes unmentioned is that Europe itself has participated for years in the same supply chain logic. The de minimis rule, which allows small parcels to enter markets cheaply and easily, now draws attention mainly because of Chinese platforms. Yet the practice of relabeling and minimal assembly has existed within Europe for much longer. Prato in Italy provides the best-known example. For years, manufacturers produced garments in Asia, shipped them to Italy, added a label or minimal finishing touch, and then sold them as “Made in Italy.” Consumers perceived European craftsmanship, while the reality reflected a global production chain. European companies criticized unfair competition from China yet used similar loopholes to protect margins and circumvent regulation. This illustrates how intertwined and at times hypocritical the system has become. The place of production matters less and less. What counts is who owns the chain and determines where each step occurs.
The automotive industry illustrates this logic even more sharply. Volvo chief executive Håkan Samuelsson states openly what many European CEOs only whisper: the electric vehicle market will likely be dominated by two or three Chinese brands, just as Ford, Volkswagen, and Toyota dominated the era of the internal combustion engine. The issue is not design or prestige but scale and vertical integration. China controls the entire chain, from raw materials and batteries to assembly and software. European brands offer history, quality, and technical sophistication, yet lack an integrated production architecture that can scale globally at low cost. Volvo hopes to survive because it can rely on Geely. Many other brands lack that scale.
The AI Plus Strategy
On top of this comes China’s AI offensive, the silent engine behind these shifts. While Europe becomes entangled in debates about ethics, precautionary principles, and regulatory frameworks, China treats AI as a factor of production. The country integrates AI into manufacturing, transport, healthcare, government, logistics, education, and retail. It builds a society in which AI is not optional but standard. In cities such as Hangzhou, children receive AI education from an early age. In Europe, policymakers still debate the word “curriculum.” The AI Plus strategy targets near-universal adoption within ten years, not as an aspiration but as an implementation plan. BYD files dozens of patents daily. JD operates autonomous warehouses. Shein manages a global fashion chain through real-time algorithms. This is not a distant future; it is the present, unfolding on a scale that Europe barely attempts to match.
Europe nonetheless possesses strong foundations. It has knowledge, creativity, quality, diversity, and highly educated talent. Yet slowness, regulatory pressure, structural aging, and the absence of a shared long-term vision erode those foundations. We debate faster than we build. We regulate faster than we innovate. We create barriers while others create platforms. Our systems remain complex, fragmented, and short-term oriented. China, by contrast, operates with continuity. Leadership may change, but direction remains constant.
It is tempting to interpret all this as a threat, but that simplifies the reality. It serves primarily as a mirror. Europe does not need to copy China, but it must stop sabotaging itself. The world changes faster than our decision-making processes and more forcefully than our instinct for caution. The question is not whether China will overtake us. That has already occurred. The real question is whether Europe will finally move forward without constantly applying the handbrake and acknowledge that strategy requires more than slogans, committees, and four-year policy cycles.If we fail to take that step, Jack Wolfskin, Puma, MediaMarkt, and segments of the European automotive industry will not remain exceptions. They will signal a future in which Europe primarily observes while others define the rules of the game.
Wingzz is our multi-day retail tour to some of the most inspiring cities in the Far East. We visit, among others, the beating heart of commerce: Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Hangzhou.
Mark 7 September 2026 in your calendar.
