‘China has arrived’: From $1,000 Gucci sneakers to German cars, China is coming for the industries that made Europe rich

Gucci built its luxury reputation on Italian craftsmanship, but its newest $1,000 sneakers break with its 105-year-old tradition with a new label: Made in China. But instead of citing the cheap labor long associated with Chinese factories, the fashion house said it picked a Chinese manufacturer known for its "technological know-how" and ability to meet the brand's quality standards.

Gucci told Reuters it will keep making its other products in Italy. But unlike the connotation a "Made in China" sticker carried from days of yore, the move to China is the latest signal of Chinese manufacturing moving into Europe's most storied industries, like high-end consumer goods and cars.

"I think symbolically, China has arrived," Ker Gibbs, former president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, told Fortune . "It's no longer a place where only cheap stuff gets manufactured and poor quality this and that."

The shift is part of what some economists, like Apollo Global Management chief economist Torsten Slok, have dubbed the second China Shock . Cheap clothes, furniture, and electronics made in China poured into Western markets in the first wave in the early 2000s. Now, China is exporting electric vehicles and industrial machinery that compete with Europe's established manufacturers, while its factories have gained the technical expertise to produce high-end goods for luxury brands like Gucci, whose sales have halved in the last three years and whose parent company Kering cut prices to deal with slow demand.

Howard Yu, a professor of management at Switzerland's International Institute for Management Development, told Fortune China is following the path of South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan in moving from t-shirts and dupes of name brand items to home appliances and higher-end cars and products "at an unprecedented scale."

Yu said much of China's know-how came from Europe. Volkswagen , for example, built cars in China since the 1980s, and "essentially has trained up a generation of suppliers to meet Western standards."

"The moment Chinese suppliers have enough capabilities, then you want to branch out to develop your own brands for better margins," Yu said.

That has left European companies in an awkward position as Chinese manufacturers move away from being suppliers to being competitors. But it still remains cheaper to make things in China than in Europe and East Asia. Chinese manufacturing workers earned $629 per month on average last year compared to $1,341 in Taiwan and $2,075 in South Korea, according to a survey by Japan's trade agency .