APPLE IN CHINA

An explosive, revelations-filled history of the tech giant's fraught relationship with the Asian superpower, which now controls 90 percent of Apple's manufacturing and is making ever-increasing demands.

This is for readers of Walter Isaacson's Steve Jobs, Chris Miller's Chip War, and Desmond Shum's Red Roulette, a deeply reported and character-driven narrative of Apple's decision to rely on China for nearly all of its manufacturing and assemblyand how that decision has bound its future inextricably to the whims of America's greatest geopolitical rival. Apple is the company with the world's most iconic brand, and frequently, the richest valuation. It represents 8% of Wall Street's S&P 500, employs three million people across the globe, and regularly orchestrates massive shifts in how humanity lives, works, and communicates. And, increasingly, it's under China's thumb. In the 1990s, Applein search of cheap labor offshored its operations to China, enabling the company to construct premium products on a monumental scale. For a time the Silicon Valley behemoth received perks from Beijing that were previously unheard of: tax exemptions, warehouses, highways, airportsChina even bulldozed a mountain to make way for an iPod factory in 2004. Today, 90% of iPhone assembly happens in China. And despite accumulating less than 20% of smartphone market share, Apple's dazzling low-cost operations have enabled it to capture more than 80% of global profits. But after years of the company calling the shots, the power dynamics have shifted. Since 2017, Beijing has made increasing demands, applying greater control over iPhone content, forcing customer data to be housed in Chinese data centers, and pressuring Apple to partner with more local businesses. The company that Steve Jobs built is in a bind. No other country comes remotely close to offering the kind of quality, scale, and flexibility needed to ship close to half a billion luxury products each year. Nor does Apple want to stop selling into the world's most populous market. Apple in China is an intimate insider account, woven from interviews with the executive and engineers who built Apple and, as well, with their counterparts in China who savvily played the hand they were dealt, transforming their nation into the planet's manufacturing powerhouse. It is both a history and a warning of a coming storm as two goliaths struggle to prevent an increasingly fraught relationship from veering out of control. The first history of Apple in the 21st century, filled with revelations and based on inside sources: Drawing from interviews with former Apple executives and engineers, most of whom have never spoken to reporters, Financial Times investigative reporter Patrick McGee shows why the company's decision to base its supply chain inside China has turned the tech powerhouse into a kind of hostage, and why sporadic attempts to find alternative sourcing have proven disastrous. McGee has been a journalist with the Financial Times since 2013, reporting from Hong Kong, Germany, and California. He led the FT's Apple coverage from 2019 to 2023 and won a San Francisco Press Club Award for his deep dive into Apple's HR problems. Previously, he was a bond reporter at the Wall Street Journal in New York. He has a Master's in Global Diplomacy from SOAS, University of London, and a degree in Religious Studies from the University of Toronto. He resides in the Bay Area with his wife and two daughters.