Apple boosts Chinese investments amid US-China trade tension
Apple has committed to boosting its investment in China, despite the ongoing tensions between Washington and Beijing.
CEO Tim Cook said on Wednesday that the tech giant told China’s industry minister, Li Lecheng, the iPhone maker will keep investing in China, according to an official summary of their meeting in Beijing released by the Chinese government, News.Az reports citing Al Jazeera.
The report gave no details of the size of the potential investment.
Many US companies have become cautious about relations with China as the world’s two biggest economies clash over tariffs and as United States President Donald Trump seeks to promote manufacturing in the US rather than elsewhere.
The California-based company, which has also made investment pledges to Washington, DC, has so far remained relatively unscathed by the trade war between the US and China. Other companies, such as Nvidia and Qualcomm, have found themselves the target of Chinese investigations.
Washington has long placed sanctions on Chinese companies, such as Huawei.
A Shanghai-based government affairs consultant, who requested anonymity because he was not authorised to speak with the media, said US companies are wary of angering a White House that could hurt them at home in the world’s biggest consumer market for appearing too pro-China, the Reuters news agency reported.
At the same time, they are seeking to avoid appearing insincere in Beijing, where they have pledged to be “in China, for China”, he added.
In August, Cook presented Trump with a custom US-made plaque mounted on a 24-carat gold stand commemorating Apple’s “American Manufacturing Program”, after saying it would invest an additional $100bn in domestic manufacturing.
“This may place Apple in the crosshairs of President Trump and his policies, but given Apple’s operations, it is possible that this move was pre-approved by the administration. These vague announcements may also be purely a public relations tactic rather than anything meaningful, given that tangible investments were never presented to the public,” Babak Hafezi, chief executive officer at Hafezi Capital, an international consulting firm, told Al Jazeera.
When Cook visited China in March, Apple made public its plans for a new clean energy fund there worth $101m (720 million yuan).
Meanwhile, Apple, which relies on suppliers and factories in China where most of its iPhones are assembled, has been trying to shift some manufacturing capacity to India.
“India was a tactic to diversify its supply chain production, increase redundancy, and mitigate geopolitical risk,” Hafezi said.
Apple’s COO Sabih Khan on Tuesday visited Lens Technology, a Chinese glass supplier for Apple, the Changsha-based company said in a statement on Wednesday.
Lens Technology produces glass covers for Apple products, including the iPhone and Apple Watch, and has been a partner for 19 years, it said.
China hopes Apple will continue to explore the Chinese market and grow together with Chinese suppliers, Industry Minister Li Lecheng, who is also in charge of infotech, told Cook, adding that China would continue to foster a good business environment for foreign companies, including Apple.
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