President Trump’s tariffs on China have highlighted how much American companies, and consumers, depend on products made in China. And arguably no company has been more exposed than Apple. 

The conventional wisdom in the West is that Apple and other corporations simply flocked to China for cheap, unskilled labor. While that is true, it masks the depth of Apple’s relationship with the Middle Kingdom. Yes, Apple products are made in China. But Apple also made China—at least the advanced technological China confronting the U.S. today. From training tens of millions of workers, to investing hundreds of billions in the country, our guest today argues that Apple has done more than anyone, or anything, to make China a manufacturing powerhouse. 

As one tech analyst observed, “It’s hard to reconcile the fact that the greatest American company, the most capitalist thing in the world, survives on the basis of a country that has Communist in its title.”

So how did America’s most iconic tech company become so invested in, and dependent on, the U.S.’s chief global adversary? What did Apple CEO Tim Cook know about what was happening, and when did he know it? How might the world look but for these investments? And as the U.S. government urges companies to de-risk and decouple from China, what position does that put Apple in?

Evan is joined by Patrick McGee. He was the Financial Times’s Apple reporter from 2019 to 2023 and is now the author of Apple in China: The Capture of the World’s Greatest Company.