Apple in China: The Capture of the World's Greatest Company

Thorough and clear eyed. McGee avoids the fawning Steve Jobs worship that characterizes most discussions of this era. Instead he paints a chilling picture of another sector of American innovation that allowed itself to be undermined and replaced in pursuit of immediate profit. Like manufacturing before it, it makes me skeptical that we won't say the same thing about AI in a few years.

I enjoyed this book immensely. I had just finished Imperial Twilight—a history of the lead-up to the Opium War—and this was suggested as a possible follow-up. Given my interest in Apple, it sounded intriguing. Which it was. I was impressed with some of the connections between the two stories, honestly.

This isn’t just a history of Apple in China, truthfully. It is a well researched and insightful history of that specific development, and McGee keeps his focus pretty tightly on that. But as such, it’s also an emblematic analysis of the kind of ravenous, hyper-efficient capitalism that Apple represents. And also, by the way, a compelling look at the ways that the West deeply, fundamentally misunderstands China—and the show more vulnerability that arises from it (which is where I saw so many parallels with that earlier history).

McGee does an excellent job illuminating the very fine details of Apple’s internal workings and, to a lesser extent, the internal politics of China. These he weaves together into a textured, full depiction of the precarious position Apple now finds itself in, and how it ended up there. The decision-making doesn’t come across as careless, or even especially conflicted. Apple’s systematic—I would say obsessive—pursuit of efficiency and control led them to create a brittle, vertically integrated system in a part of the world that operates under rules the company barely even sees, much less understands. It’s an approach that served them extremely well in the short term, but left them dependent and vulnerable in the long. (Along the way, incidentally, it also led them to treat human costs as entirely negligible—or at best, negotiable.)

I don’t tend to restrain myself when I’m talking about this stuff, as I’m sure you’re noticing. But credit to the author—his approach and tone are measured throughout the book. He’s carefully examining the case, trying to piece together the enigmatic situation of today’s Apple in today’s China. If anything, McGee lets Apple (and especially Tim Cook) off easy. He wants us to see the systemic nature of this geopolitical predicament, the ways that Washington stumbled into China, with Apple following in its wake. He’s not necessarily wrong, but Apple’s own hubris and greed were critical elements in producing the situation they now face. show less

Merely an hour after finishing this book, the Wall Street Journal ran a story on a new Foxconn-operated Mac Mini facility in the US.

Thanks to the insights I’d just read in the book, I could immediately place the news in context: the facility is too small and its mission too simple to be a genuine effort by Apple to diversify or move its supply chain. In short: it’s a political move.

That’s how good this book truly is.

It offers a surprisingly intimate view of the world of Apple’s production logistics, backed by internal documents (some reported for the first time) and interviews with top managers from both Apple and its partners.

The book starts in the company's early years, tracing its evolution from a firm that once cherished show more its own American factories to one that is now completely beholden to a complex, multi-layered network of Chinese suppliers.

What I really liked is how the book meticulously tracks this transition at every stage. It doesn’t just explain the "how" and "why" of the shift to outsourcing; it also focuses on the "who." By also reporting on the backgrounds and motivations of the people behind these moves, McGee provides a unique look at the logic—and the missteps—that built the modern Apple machine.

I also particularly appreciated the judgment-free analysis of Chinese corporate culture and how those differences fundamentally shaped Apple’s strategy. show less

A consideration of the existential risk that Apple has helped China to become. Starts with a summary of how Apple became what IT is today. Then a history of Apple’s off shoring to China and all of the technology Apple introduced to China. Thoughts about what the destruction of Taiwan semiconductor would mean.

A study of how how capitalism's relentless pursuit of efficiency (for short-term profit maximisation) had led to a longer term loss in resilience for Apple.

Apple wants to keep working in China because they are so cheap, so they give away all their engineering and technical knowledge to the Chinese. At one point, many years later, when they try to open a similar plant in Texas, they have to bring in Chinese workers to train them. Ugh.

Now the Chinese have the engineering knowledge and are starting to successfully compete with Apple.

Saturday Extra 31May 2025
American engineers are teaching whole Chinese factories how to be a factory