Apple in China

Apple isn’t just a brand; it’s the world’s most valuable company and creator of the 21st century’s defining product. The iPhone has revolutionized the way we live, work and connect. But Apple is now a victim of its own success, caught in the middle of a new Cold War between two superpowers.

On the brink of bankruptcy in 1996, Apple shifted its operations offshore. By 2003 it was lured to China by the promise of affordable, ubiquitous labour. As the iPod and iPhone transformed Apple’s fortunes, their sophisticated production played a seminal role in financing, training, supervising, and supplying Chinese manufacturers – skills Beijing is now weaponizing against the West.

Investigative journalist Patrick McGee draws on 200 interviews with former Apple executives and engineers to reveal how Cupertino’s choice to anchor its supply chain in China has increasingly made it vulnerable to the regime’s whims. Both an insider’s historical account and a cautionary tale, Apple in China is the first history of Apple to go beyond the biographies of its top executives and set the iPhone’s global domination within an increasingly fraught geopolitical context.

Patrick McGee led Apple coverage at the Financial Times from 2019 to 2023 and won a San Francisco Press Club Award for his coverage of the company. He joined the newspaper in 2013, in Hong Kong, before reporting from Germany and California. His reporting in the last decade has centered on upheavals in technology, including autonomous cars, electric vehicles, and major developments in the supply chain. Previously, he was a bond reporter at the Wall Street Journal. He received a Master's in Global Diplomacy from SOAS, University of London, where his thesis focused on the US military budget and competition with China. He has also a degree in Religious Studies from the University of Toronto. Originally from Calgary, Canada, he and his family make their home in the Bay Area. Patrick is a keen runner, reader of history, and traveller.