Beyond Shein: Mapping the Global Ambition of China's E-Commerce

Search for a report, a publication, an expert...

Author

Special Advisor and Resident Senior Fellow - U.S. and Asia

François Godement is Institut Montaigne’s Special Advisor and Resident Senior Fellow – Asia and America. He was also a Nonresident Senior Fellow of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C. and, until the summer of 2024, an external consultant for the Policy Planning Staff of the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs. He was the Director of ECFR’s Asia & China Program and a Senior Policy Fellow before leaving in December 2018.

Shein’s arrival at BHV, and the controversy that followed, accelerated French and European awareness of the need to regulate e-commerce. But Shein is merely the symptom of a deeper shift: the tree that must not obscure the forest.

Behind the promise of "just-in-time" and "ultra-accessible" lies an industrial model of formidable efficiency. It is built on the near-total integration of value chains, from design to production, from logistics to distribution, from algorithmic marketing to data capture, and is driven by Chinese actors capable of combining industrial power, artificial intelligence, and logistics at massive scale.

This upheaval no longer affects only the textile industry; it now strikes at the very heart of European retail. Complete disintermediation, sectoral fragmentation, pressure on social and environmental standards, polarization of consumption… It is the very architecture of our market that is being tested.

The stakes are strategic. They concern our ability to defend the single market, modernize our regulatory tools, invest in artificial intelligence, and rethink our economic sovereignty. Shein is thus the vanguard of a broader movement. Understanding this dynamic is the prerequisite for any credible response: firm in the short term, coherent over the long term.

Download

Executive Summary
(4 pages)

Note
(78 pages)

Headlines

January 2026

China’s Stockpiling: Domestic Resilience, Global Influence

China is massively expanding strategic reserves of food, energy and critical minerals to shield itself from global shocks, stabilise prices and build geopolitical leverage. For Europe, this stockpiling strategy is a wake-up call. The EU must prioritise which materials to secure, decide how to share costs, and choose whether to act at national or European scale. Doing nothing may leave Europe dangerously exposed.

Read the Explainers

<p><strong>China’s Stockpiling: Domestic Resilience, Global Influence</strong></p>

03/03/2026

Europe’s China Dilemma: Friedrich Merz’s Visit As an Illustration

François Godement

01/21/2026

Dealing with China Just Became Even More Difficult

François Godement

France

Europe and International

Topics

Beyond Shein: Mapping
the Global Ambition of China's E-Commerce