Apple in China - by Patrick McGee (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

For readers of Walter Isaacson's Steve Jobs and Chris Miller's Chip War, a riveting look at how Apple helped build China's dominance in electronics assembly and manufacturing only to find itself trapped in a relationship with an authoritarian state making ever-increasing demands.

After struggling to build its products on three continents, Apple was lured by China's seemingly inexhaustible supply of cheap labor. Soon it was sending thousands of engineers across the Pacific, training millions of workers, and spending hundreds of billions of dollars to create the world's most sophisticated supply chain. These capabilities enabled Apple to build the 21st century's most iconic products--in staggering volume and for enormous profit.

Without explicitly intending to, Apple built an advanced electronics industry within China, only to discover that its massive investments in technology upgrades had inadvertently given Beijing a power that could be weaponized.

In Apple in China, journalist Patrick McGee draws on more than two hundred interviews with former executives and engineers, supplementing their stories with unreported meetings held by Steve Jobs, emails between top executives, and internal memos regarding threats from Chinese competition. The book highlights the unknown characters who were instrumental in Apple's ascent and who tried to forge a different path, including the Mormon missionary who established the Apple Store in China; the "Gang of Eight" executives tasked with placating Beijing; and an idealistic veteran whose hopes of improving the lives of factory workers were crushed by both Cupertino's operational demands and Xi Jinping's war on civil society.

Apple in China is the sometimes disturbing and always revelatory story of how an outspoken, proud company that once praised "rebels" and "troublemakers"--the company that encouraged us all to "Think Different"--devolved into passively cooperating with a belligerent regime that increasingly controls its fate.

Review Quotes

"A MASTERFUL AND DEEPLY REPORTED PORTRAYAL OF HOW APPLE GAINED CHINA AND LOST ITS SOUL."
--Isaac Stone Fish, author of America Second and CEO of Strategy Risks

"A MASTERPIECE OF INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM, REPLETE WITH REVELATIONS. Every iPhone owner will want to read this book, but no Apple employee will risk being seen with it. McGee shows how China played the long game, convincing Apple to invest on an unprecedented scale and, inadvertently, help build its grand authoritarian project. This book is a warning for anyone eager to do business in hostile countries."
--Geoffrey Cain, author of Samsung Rising and The Perfect Police State

"A TOUR-DE-FORCE ACCOUNT. Apple in China captures every twist and turn of the tech giant's off-kilter and decidedly off-script relationship with the authoritarian state. What will surprise many is how China ensnared a corporate titan by matching and then surpassing its knack for ruthless efficiency and global dominance."
--Megan Murphy, former Editor in Chief of Bloomberg BusinessWeek

"ABSOLUTELY RIVETING. An extraordinary story, expertly told--and one that has important implications for Apple, for tech, and for global geoeconomics."
--Peter Frankopan, Professor of Global History at Oxford and bestselling author of Silk Roads

"DEEPLY RESEARCHED, DISTURBING, AND ENLIGHTENING. Apple in China reveals how Apple enabled China's rise, seemingly at the cost of its own future. In these pages we watch as the world's most profitable company gets outmaneuvered by the world's most powerful dictator."
--Chris Miller, New York Times bestselling author of Chip War

"HUGELY IMPORTANT. Patrick McGee shows us how Apple's quest for wealth and power in China may in the end be the undoing both of the company and of America's quest for technology supremacy."
--Rana Foroohar, CNN Global Economic Analyst and author of Makers and Takers: The Rise of Finance and the Fall of American Business

"TO CALL THIS BOOK A PAGE TURNER IS TO ALMOST DIMINISH ITS IMPORTANCE. IT IS A ONCE-IN-A-GENERATION READ. Apple is more than the world's greatest company. It is integral to the whole culture of globalization. Patrick McGee not only narrates the epic history of Apple, but explains how, in effect, it got taken over by China, the world's greatest illiberal power."
--Robert D. Kaplan, author of the New York Times bestseller The Revenge of Geography and Waste Land: A World in Permanent Crisis

About the Author

Patrick McGee was the Financial Times's principal Apple reporter from 2019 to 2023, during which time he won a San Francisco Press Club Award for his coverage. He joined the newspaper in 2013, in Hong Kong, before reporting from Germany and California. Previously, he was a bond reporter at The Wall Street Journal. He has a master's degree in global diplomacy from SOAS, University of London, and a degree in religious studies from the University of Toronto. He and his family make their home in the Bay Area.