In early November, the Chinese fast fashion giant Shein opened its first European store in the heart of downtown Paris. The reaction was, to put in mildly, mixed: bargain-hunters flocked to the store but riot police had to physically remove protesters for setting off a stink bomb. The contrast between enthusiastic shoppers, stink bomb-wielding activists, and a mostly indifferent public is an apt symbol for Europe’s confused response to China’s rise, which vacillates between courtship, benign indifference, and deep suspicion. Anti-China sentiment recalls earlier anxieties about American commercial and industrial…

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