How Apple trapped itself in China

Channels with Peter Kafka

Vox Media Podcast Network

Technology, Tv & Film, Business News, News

4.4 • 585 Ratings

🗓️ 14 May 2025

⏱️ 67 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The iPhone you’re reading this on was made in China. For a long time, that fact was a huge part of Apple’s success story: Working hand-in-hand, Apple and China built a sophisticated supply chain that let Apple manufacture very complicated technology at an enormous scale. Now that relationship seems like Apple’s achilles heel, says Patrick McGee. McGee covered Apple for the Financial Times for years. Now his new book “Apple in China” explains how Apple ventured into China, spent years and tens of billions of dollars investing in the country’s production infrastructure, and now seems trapped there — and in the middle of the U.S./China trade war. McGee’s book is in large part a history book, and one that I’d recommend to anyone who wants to understand Apple, and China. It’s also, obviously, a very timely one. So this interview is part “how did we get here” and also “what happens next”. (Spoiler: Moving Apple’s production to India and Vietnam — something you read about periodically — isn’t going to happen, if ever, for years.) Help us plan for the future of Channels by filling out a brief survey: ⁠⁠voxmedia.com/survey⁠⁠. Thank you! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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1:41.3	this is channels with Peter Kafka that is me I'm also the chief correspondent at Business Insider.
1:48.0	And today we're talking about Apple. That's a company we talk a lot about on a show that's interested in the future of tech and media.
1:54.8	Today, though, we're using a different lens to look at Apple. We're talking about how Apple products get made, which means we're
2:01.7	talking about China. And we're talking about how Apple is nearly 100% dependent on China to make
2:07.1	iPhones and everything else. And crucially, what that means as Apple is under increasing pressure
2:12.6	to not be dependent on China. Here to walk us through all of that is Patrick McGee, who just literally
2:19.1	wrote the book on this. It's called Apple and China. It's out now. Patrick is a veteran business
2:23.9	journalist who spent several years covering Apple for the Financial Times. He's used that
	...

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