Tim Cook, Nation-Builder

This week, I’m joined by Patrick McGee, a journalist and author
of Apple in China: The Capture of the World’s Greatest Company. I
recommended this book on LinkedIn as a MUST READ, and stand by
it.


Apple in China is an in-depth corporate history which examines
one of the most important symbioses in economic history. It
explains Apple's meteoric rise in market capitalization/revenue,
as well as China's newfound dominance in precision manufacturing.
McGee argues convincingly that neither outcome would have
happened without this relationship.


To back up this extraordinary claim, McGee closely maps how Apple
systematically sent top engineers from around the world to train
up hundreds of factories in China, pressed for demanding
specifications at “ridiculously high yield,” and invested sums
directly into China that made the post-WW2 Marshall Plan look
small. The result? China now leads in 57 of 64 critical
technologies, as measured by the Australian Strategic Policy
Institute, dominating everything from smartphones to electric
vehicles.


As Trump threatens iPhone-specific tariffs and Tim Cook promises
impossible reshoring timelines, Apple finds itself captured by
the very system it helped create. Having accidentally armed its
greatest competitor, there is no clear pathway for the U.S. to
regain the lead it helped China take.


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