Tim Cook has praised Apple’s symbiotic relationship with China despite rising trade and geopolitical tensions between Beijing and the US, as well as the iPhone maker’s own moves to diversify from the country.
On his first visit to China since the pandemic began in 2020, the Apple CEO said the company will celebrate its 30th anniversary this year in the country that makes the majority of its iPhones.
“We couldn’t be more excited,” Cook said at the China Development Forum in Beijing, the country’s version of Davos, which Beijing is keeping offline for the first time since the pandemic began. “Apple and China . . . grew together and it became a symbiotic type of relationship.”
Cook is one of several American business leaders in Beijing for an opening party after three years of a strict zero-Covid policy.
In a sign of how positively the US tech company continues to be perceived in one of its biggest markets, Cook’s trip was reported by China’s state media, while customers at the group’s flagship store in Beijing erupted in applause on his visit Friday.
The trip comes after one of Apple’s toughest years in China in 2022, as President Xi Jinping’s zero-Covid controls ravaged supply chains.
Apple’s quarterly revenue fell for the first time in three and a half years in the three months to the end of December after “significant” supply chain disruptions in China delayed shipments of iPhones over the holiday period.
The company’s biggest supplier, Foxconn, has faced work force unrest in Zhengzhou, the east China city where analysts estimate 60 percent of iPhones are made, after authorities swept the area under zero-Covid controls in China blocked in November.
Meanwhile, the US has tightened export controls on China’s deployment of advanced chip technology, spoiling the atmosphere for big American investors in the country.
Some users on Weibo, China’s version of Twitter, have posted photos contrasting Cook’s warm welcome at his Beijing store on Friday with Shou Zi Chew, head of Chinese short-video app TikTok, grilled by the US Congress last week.
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Cook avoided mentioning US-China tensions and supply chain issues in a session on technology and education at the China Development Forum.
“We have a very large supply chain in China and of course we also have our . . . Apple Stores,” he said, adding that the company has millions of developers in the country for its iOS operating system.
“From the moment we hit the ground yesterday we couldn’t wait to see some of our customers so we headed to the Sanliutn store [in Beijing],” he said.
Apple, as part of its diversification strategy, is attempting to set up operations in India, sending engineers and designers to the country for weeks or months to oversee manufacturing. While the company has been making entry-level iPhones in India since 2017, it has recently started making high-end models that are typically made in China.
With additional reporting by Ryan McMorrow