What China gained from Apple

A little more than a decade ago, foreign journalists living in Beijing, including myself, met for a long chat with a top Chinese diplomat.

- HANNAH BEECH

Those were different days, when high-ranking Chinese officials were still meeting with members of the Western press corps. The diplomat whom we met had the latest iPhone in front of her on the table.

I noticed the Apple gadget because at the time, Chinese state news media were unleashing invectives on the company for supposedly cheating Chinese consumers. (It wasn't true.) There were rumors circulating that Chinese government officials were being told not to flaunt American status symbols.

The diplomat's accoutrement proved that wrong.

At the time, one could make the argument that China's economic modernization was being accompanied by a parallel, if somewhat more laggardly, political reform. But the advent in 2012 of Xi Jinping has shattered those hopes.

And, as Patrick McGee makes devastatingly clear in his smart and comprehensive Apple in China, the American company's decision under Tim Cook to manufacture about 90 per cent of its products in China has created an existential vulnerability not just for Apple, but for the United States—nurturing the conditions for Chinese technology to outpace American innovation.