No one here can say exactly when it happened, but suddenly China is everywhere in Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital.

没人能说清楚具体是从什么时候开始的，但突然间，中国的身影在印尼首都雅加达无处不在。

Compact Chinese electric cars weave through the streets. Chinese cosmetics crowd pharmacy shelves. Chinese hot pot restaurants and milk-tea chains have sprouted across the city’s many, many malls.

中国的紧凑型电动车在街头穿梭，中国的化妆品挤满药妆店货架，中国的火锅店和奶茶连锁在这座城市数不清的购物中心里迅速涌现。

“It’s all very sudden — they just came to this country, all the brands, including cars and drinks, without us knowing,” said Kavin Hibrizy Pradipto Eska, who recently traveled hours from his university to a motor show in northern Jakarta just to admire the Chinese cars on display.

“真是一下子就冒出来了——那些中国牌子，什么汽车啊饮料啊，不知不觉就涌进了这个国家，”卡文·希布里齐·普拉迪普托·埃斯卡说。他最近从自己就读的大学花了几个小时赶到雅加达北部的一个车展，就是为了看看展出的中国车。

Squeezed by cautious, penny-pinching consumers at home, Chinese companies are fanning out across the globe — from Brazil to the United Arab Emirates — in search of new ones. Indonesia, with its young, teeming population, is an obvious target.

面对国内消费者精打细算、不敢花钱的局面，中国企业正大举走出国门，从巴西到阿联酋，到处寻找新的消费者。拥有庞大年轻人口的印尼自然成为一个显而易见的目标。

But the courtship is complicated. China is already Indonesia’s largest investor and the biggest buyer of Indonesia’s natural resources, yet its presence is not always welcome. A flood of cheap Chinese goods has wiped out local jobs, and anti-Chinese sentiment, which has erupted into riots in the past, still simmers beneath the surface.

但这种“追求”并不是那么简单的事情。中国已经是印尼最大的投资者，也是其自然资源的最大买家，但这种存在并不总是受到欢迎。大量廉价中国商品的涌入挤掉了本地就业机会，而反华情绪——以前曾爆发为骚乱——至今仍暗流涌动。

And yet Chinese brands are winning over Indonesians. Companies like Mixue, Haidilao and BYD are reshaping how Indonesians see China. They are rising as American companies like Starbucks and McDonald’s struggle to win back young Indonesians, many of them Muslim, who have been boycotting American brands over U.S. support of Israel’s deadly attacks on civilians in Gaza.

尽管如此，中国品牌正在赢得印尼人的心。蜜雪冰城、海底捞和比亚迪等公司正在重塑印尼人对中国的看法。与此同时，星巴克和麦当劳等美国公司却在艰难地努力赢回印尼的年轻人——其中许多人是穆斯林，他们因美国支持以色列对加沙平民的致命打击而一直在抵制美国品牌。

For decades, China has been the world’s factory for items like vacuum cleaners, umbrellas and flip flops. But in the past few years, its companies have become household names, driving a sweeping technological shift across industries such as solar panels and electric vehicles. Chinese firms are now selling more of everything abroad, sending a tsunami of exports into every corner of the world, but especially to Southeast Asia.

几十年来，中国一直是生产吸尘器、雨伞和人字拖这类产品的世界工厂。但在过去几年里，很多中国企业成为了家喻户晓的名字，在太阳能电池板和电动汽车等行业推动了一场全面的技术变革。如今，中国企业向海外销售的各类商品越来越多，将出口产品如同海啸般送往全球各个角落，尤其是东南亚。

Large, fast-growing markets like Indonesia are increasingly vital for Chinese brands as U.S. trade barriers, including steep tariffs and restrictions on Chinese carmakers, close off what was once their largest export market.

像印尼这样规模庞大且快速增长的市场对中国品牌而言变得愈发重要。随着美国设置贸易壁垒——包括高额关税以及对中国汽车制造商的限制——这个曾经最大的出口市场正逐渐关闭。

That push into new markets is already shaping consumer choices for Mr. Kavin, 20. As a university student, he has no income yet. But once he does, he said, he plans to buy a Tiggo, a hybrid from the Chinese automaker Chery, because it looks cute and costs half as much as other foreign cars.

这种向新市场扩张的趋势已经在影响卡文这样的年轻消费者的选择。20岁的他还是一名大学生，目前没有收入。但他说，一旦开始赚钱，他打算买一辆奇瑞的混动车瑞虎，因为外形可爱，而且价格只有其他外国品牌的一半。

“China is just, like, the future for me,” Mr. Kavin said, acknowledging that the sentiment surprises even him. He used to associate Chinese products with poor quality, he said, but that assumption has faded as more Chinese brands have appeared around him, often at the forefront of new technology.

“对我来说，中国就像是未来，”卡文说。他也承认，这种想法连他自己都感到有些意外。他过去总把中国产品和质量不好联系在一起，但随着越来越多中国品牌出现在他身边，而且往往处在新技术的前沿，这种看法已经逐渐消退。

Electric vehicles changed Eski Badillah’s mind about Chinese companies. Mr. Eski, 35, is a remedial loan officer who repossesses borrowers’ motorbikes when they fall behind on payments. He started to notice the Chinese ones that he was apprehending.

电动车改变了埃斯基·巴迪拉对中国企业的看法。35岁的埃斯基是一名不良贷款处理专员，当借款人逾期还款时，他会收回他们的摩托车。他开始注意到自己收回的摩托车中有越来越多是中国品牌。

“Before, like 20 years ago, people would say: ‘Oh, what is this? It’s made in China,’” Mr. Eski said one recent afternoon, sitting outside a Mixue, the Chinese fast-food chain, in a residential Jakarta neighborhood. “We probably would laugh at it, the idea of a car or motorcycle from China.”

“以前，比如20年前，人们会说：‘这是什么？中国制造的，’”不久前的一个下午，埃斯基在雅加达一个居民区的蜜雪冰城门口坐着说道。“那时候提到中国制造的汽车或摩托车，我们大概会嗤之以鼻。”

“These days, that has changed,” he added. “The image of Chinese brands has become more positive.” When he has the money, he said, he plans to buy an electric vehicle from BYD.

“如今，情况已经变了，”他补充道。“中国品牌的形象变得正面了。”他说，等他有钱了，他打算买一辆比亚迪的电动车。

BYD and Geely, another top Chinese carmaker, are battling fierce competition at home and a glut of unsold electric vehicles. To survive, they have pushed aggressively into foreign markets. In Europe and the United States, their cars have faced a slew of trade barriers. Indonesia, by contrast, offers preferential tax rates to carmakers willing to build factories here.

比亚迪以及另一家中国大型汽车制造商吉利，正面临国内市场激烈的竞争和电动车库存过剩的问题。为了生存，它们大举进军海外市场。在欧洲和美国，它们的汽车遭遇了一系列贸易壁垒；相比之下，印尼则为愿意在当地建厂的汽车制造商提供优惠税率。

Chinese cars are “the most innovative, and they have the most features,” said Bramantya Adji Pratama, 27, a bank officer who was sharing hot pot with his partner at a location of the Chinese franchise Haidilao on a recent weekday.

“这些中国车最具创新性，而且配置也最丰富，”27岁的银行职员布拉曼蒂亚·阿吉·普拉塔马说。当时他正与伴侣正在一家海底捞吃火锅。

Nearby, a Haidilao employee stretched ribbons of dough into noodles, gyrating to a loud beat — part of the theatrics that have helped fuel the chain’s popularity. With 12 locations in Indonesia, Haidilao has exported more than just food, bringing a distinctive level of service that includes massages and manicures for customers waiting in line.

附近，一名海底捞员工随着强烈的节奏甩动面团，将其拉成长长的面条——这种表演式的服务正是这家连锁店大受欢迎的原因之一。海底捞在印尼已有12家门店，它输出的不只是食物，还包括一种独特的服务体验，比如为排队等座的食客提供按摩和美甲服务。

China is also exporting shopping habits. Indonesia has become one of the largest global markets for livestream shopping on TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance.

中国也在输出消费方式。印尼已成为TikTok全球最大的直播带货市场之一，而该平台归中国公司字节跳动所有。

Like many other young Indonesians who are tethered to their phones and constantly online, Lutfiah, 29, who goes by one name, discovered the Chinese makeup brand Skintific through social media influencers, she said. The brand hosts hourslong livestreams during which presenters demonstrate products, answer questions and offer discounts.

跟许多手机不离手、时刻挂在网上的印尼年轻人一样，29岁的卢提亚（她只有单名）表示，她是通过社交媒体上的网红了解到中国美妆品牌Skintific的。该品牌会进行长达数小时的直播，主播在直播中展示产品、回答问题并提供折扣。

“How I see China and Chinese people has changed because of some of the products I use,” she said.

“我对中国和中国人的看法因为我使用的一些产品而发生了改变，”她说。

Tauhid Ahmad, an economist at the Institute for Development Economics and Finance in Jakarta, said that South Korean pop music and culture were wildly popular in Indonesia a decade ago, but that Chinese dramas had overtaken them in popularity these days. He said many young Indonesians were unaware of the historical tensions between China and Indonesia.

雅加达经济与金融发展研究所的经济学家陶希德·艾哈迈德表示，十年前韩国流行音乐和文化在印尼非常火爆，但如今中国电视剧已经在受欢迎程度上超过了它们。他说，许多印尼年轻人并不了解中国与印尼之间的历史紧张关系。

“They don’t know about the past,” he said. “They believe that China is good because it is a rich country and they have good technology.”

“他们不了解过去，”他说。“他们认为中国很好，因为它是一个富裕的国家，而且拥有先进的技术。”

This shift is unfolding as some young consumers turn away from American brands. Boycott campaigns targeting McDonald’s, Starbucks and KFC have spread widely on social media, eating into sales and opening opportunities for rivals. The intensity of the boycott campaign has eased since Israel’s war with Hamas began in 2023, but many consumers are still avoiding those brands.

这种转变发生在一些年轻消费者开始远离美国品牌之际。针对麦当劳、星巴克和肯德基的抵制活动在社交媒体上广泛传播，这侵蚀了这些品牌的销售额，也为竞争对手创造了机会。自2023年以色列与哈马斯的战争爆发以来，抵制的强度有所减弱，但仍有不少消费者继续回避这些品牌。

In Jakarta, the embrace of all things Chinese is visible in places like Glodok, the city’s Chinatown, once known for its wholesale shops selling inexpensive goods. The area is now crowded with coffee shops and food stalls, set against restored facades and heritage temples.

在雅加达，唐人街格洛多克就是这种拥抱中国风潮的缩影。这里过去以批发廉价商品闻名，如今却遍布咖啡馆和小吃摊，映衬着周围修缮一新的建筑外墙和古老寺庙。

雅加达唐人街格洛多克市场的美食广场。

Restu Ramadhani Putri, 24, wanted to visit the neighborhood after seeing it featured on TikTok alongside impressive videos of China’s vast highways, trains and infrastructure.

24岁的雷丝杜·拉玛达尼·普特里说，她在TikTok上刷到了这个街区的视频，还看到那些特别震撼的中国高速路、高铁和基建画面，看完就想到唐人街转转。

“In the past, if we bought something from China, we would say, ‘Ugh, it’s from China,’” Ms. Restu said. “Now it’s like, ‘Wow, China is really cool.’”

“过去，如果我们买到中国的东西，会说‘呃，是中国的，’”雷丝杜说，“现在则变成‘哇，中国真酷。’”