The decoupling? It’s easier said than done. Even or especially for a global giant like Apple.
Its chairman Tim Cook made a surprise visit to Beijing to attend the China Development Forum. Full of applause from customers during its passage to the store in the capital. A very warm reception also from the national media, which several Chinese social media users have contrasted with the hostile climate that has arisen in the United States for TikTok and the other Chinese digital giants.
A lot of warmth also in Cook’s words. “I’m excited to be back here,” he said. “Apple and China have grown together and this has been a symbiotic relationship.”
Admission of how difficult it is to break away from the Chinese market, which Cupertino entered exactly 30 years ago. In his speech to the forum, Cook praised Chinese technological advances and the latest developments in artificial intelligence and augmented reality, some of the sectors considered crucial by the White House in the competition with Beijing.
However, the president of Apple did not unbalance himself on future projects in China, from where he received some bad news in 2022, a side effect of the zero Covid strategy which remained in force until December. The company’s main supplier, Taiwanese Foxconn, has faced mass protests from its workers in Zhengzhou, the eastern Chinese city where 60% of iPhones are manufactured. Bottom line: Apple’s quarterly revenue for the three months to late December fell for the first time in three-and-a-half years after “significant” supply chain disruptions in China delayed iPhone deliveries over the holiday period.
Meanwhile, the United States has increased export controls on advanced chip technology to China, souring the atmosphere for big American investors in the Asian giant’s market. Two trends that are leading Apple’s suppliers and others to diversify and at least partially shift their production chain. But thinking of achieving true decoupling with China seems extremely complicated.
Also on Saturday, dozens of US business officials in Beijing met with new foreign minister Qin Gang, a former ambassador to Washington. Yes, precisely the one who during the recent parliamentary “two sessions” warned of the risk of a conflict. This time, Qin used much softer tones.
“Sino-US relations are the most important bilateral relations in the world,” he said. “If the Sino-US relationship improves, the whole world will benefit, otherwise the whole world will suffer.”
The business world seems to be the first to hope that the first will materialize between the two options, despite the thousand current difficulties, with the bilateral dialogue that is going through a complicated moment to say the least. Even if, according to the South China Morning Post, a new inclusion in the agenda of the visit of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Beijing, which was skipped in early February due to the affair of the alleged spy balloon, could be glimpsed on the horizon.
In the meantime, another visit to the Chinese capital, that of Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva, has also been skipped for now. The presidential office released a medical note stating that, after a clinical evaluation, Lula was diagnosed with bacterial and viral bronchopneumonia caused by influenza A. As a result, his trip scheduled for Sunday 26 to Friday 31 March has been postponed to a date to be determined. The visit was meant to relaunch trade relations between Brazil and China, so much so that Lula had about 250 entrepreneurs in tow, but also to create what the South American president called a “peace club” together with Xi Jinping.
#Tim #Cooks #visit #China #Apple #symbiotic #relationship #country