Apple CEO Tim Cook’s recent all-smiles charm offensive in China is the latest in a long parade of Western business leaders in recent decades seeking to shore up access to the Chinese market and consumer. It’s an outdated playbook, writes China policy expert Dewardric McNeal.
Dewardric L. McNeal for CNBC:
There’s been a recent uptick in U.S. CEOs making treks to China in search of favor and foothold. This ritual, epitomized by high-profile engagements — such as Apple CEO Tim Cook’s effusive overtures and statements of commitments to China — signals that American corporate titans think the strategy can still work. It won’t. It’s a strategic play drawn from an antiquated playbook.
Tim Cook’s recent sojourn in China, including pledges of increased investment and the expansion of research and development facilities, exemplify this tried and tested strategy. Tim Cook’s narrative of China as “critical” to Apple, coupled with his admiration for the country’s advanced manufacturing capabilities, embodies the ethos of this engagement playbook.
But the approach has run its course. It is no longer fit for purpose in an era of intense bilateral economic competition, geopolitical tensions, technological rivalries, and a profound reshaping of the global economic landscape. CEOs who continue to bet on this strategy should expect diminishing marginal returns, particularly under Xi Jinping’s leadership.
Despite Cook’s efforts, Apple faces declining sales in China, a testament to the growing domestic competition, security concerns about foreign hardware and software, and an increasingly nationalistic and patriotic Chinese consumers.
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Is the Tim Cook recipe for a bonanza of profits from a smorgasbord of products getting a bit too samey and boring? Time for a new chef?
It’s amazing how Apple turns a blind eye to this. How can such an enlighten corporation partner with a criminal state ? Killing prisoners on a huge scale to provide organ harvesting for profit.
I guess the Steve Jobs “rinse and repeat” playbook rreally has run out. It’s gotten so that the iPhone is a great device and a slight bump here and there doesn’t do enough to entice old users to upgrade or Android users to switch. Apple took a wrong turn at What Next Avenue and tried to make a car. Way outside their core competency. While they were trying to decide on upholstery options, OpenAI ignited the AI revolution. For real, this time. Suddenly, the most powerful and productive thing you could do with an Apple product was use LLM Generative AIs. Whoop! Who let the bots out!
Expecting Apple to handle China any better seems a bit much right now.
Screeching to a halt on Titan and making a U-turn towards AI should still be easier than relocating most of your manufacturing out of China, though I don’t think Apple’s leadership is up to either task. They bungled the company into this mess after all, their instincts were the opposite of what was needed.
Apple will be carbon neutral by 2030, though.