> Apple has spent many years happily profiting from cheap Chinese manufacturing, labor, electrial engineering expertise and supply chains to the point where they are now completely beholden to a foreign country.

Up to a point there's a cost advantage, but Tim Cook has also pointed that Apple uses Chinese factories because it allows them to take advantage of the local manufacturing capabilities, which are substantial. [0] In fact to hear him tell it those capabilities are simply not available elsewhere. I take him at his word on this topic at least.

[0] https://www.inc.com/glenn-leibowitz/apple-ceo-tim-cook-this-...

Tim Cook also invested a third of a trillion dollars in China because they did not have the manufacturing capabilities to build the iPhone how Apple wanted at the time of the investment. [1]

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-tim-cook-275-billion-c...

And Cook mocked the US because we didn't have the right tooling to make screws for his Mac pro, he went all over the news and kept spewing how bad our industrial sector was.

One of the tooling engineers that had previously worked with Apple before they were offshored said, "Well, we couldn't wait around for him to come back to us, we have to eat too so we switched to making different things. He's welcome to invest in our production and we'll make whatever he wants"

Cook loves helping out China, not sure why. /s

A somewhat warped understanding on "manufacturing capabilities".

While Apple may have had to spend money setting up the specific assembly line, fabrication plants, train staff, etc because they simply didn't exist prior to their requirement, the fact that they were able to set it up someplace, and continuously feed raw materials, parts, labour etc with dozens of redundant suppliers for EACH component, is what indicates manufacturing capability.

Manufacturing is more ecosystem than "capability".

> In fact to hear him tell it those capabilities are simply not available elsewhere.

This is a huge overlooked factor in all of the debate regarding the supply chain.

You can't "just move" manufacturing capabilities from one place to another, and debate the labor costs. Rather, probably more importantly, there's actually a _skills supply_ problem.

People will learn the skills if the demand exists. That's what China did and Americans can do it too if multinational companies support US manufacturing.

America doesn't allow the labor or environmental manufacturing conditions that allow China to compete so effectively. We need border adjustments such that goods coming from countries with lesser labor or environmental protections cost more and those coming from countries with better labor/environmental protections cost less (it also has to be transitive so China can't just launder their products through the Czech Republic--i.e., the Czech Republic would have to have a similar border adjustment policy in order to qualify).

Companies don't have to buy from the lowest bidder. Apple could choose to support manufacturing in countries with better labor/environmental protections without any new laws.

I think border adjustments are also a good idea, but I won't give Apple a free pass for choosing to support such poor manufacturing conditions just to make more profit.

No, because then they'd get easily undercut by competition without such ethical scruples.

This is a tragedy of the commons problem, you need central enforcement.

Apple would get easily undercut by competitors with lower prices? Many have tried.

But yes, that could happen to other companies, which shows that consumers share responsibility for ignoring the labor and environmental conditions.

Consumers don't have any transparency into labor or environmental conditions. We can't even see a bill of materials for our products much less information on the labor or environmental conditions. The problem is systemic--the rules incentivize bad outcomes; litigating blame is pointless and distracting: fix the rules and move on.

That is not true. We all know China has poor environmental protections and low wages, and yet we choose to buy products made in China.

And the consumers who don't care are also voters who don't care, so the rules won't be fixed.

But a few powerful people could create huge changes all on their own. Holding them responsible is not pointless, it's our best hope for change.

> That is not true. We all know China has poor environmental protections and low wages, and yet we choose to buy products made in China.

It's 100% true, and we often buy from China because overwhelmingly there simply aren't alternatives, the alternatives are prohibitively difficult to find, the alternative is another developing country with similar labor and environmental policies, or the alternative is laundered through a country with good regulation (a car is "manufactured" in America but all of its components--the bulk of its value--are produced in developing countries without regulation).

> And those consumers are also voters. The rules won't be fixed because most people don't care either as consumers or as voters.

Right, but they don't have the same access to politicians that corporations do. This is a different and worse systemic problem. Moreover, corporations run campaigns to shift public opinion away from effectual policy. In the 70s bottling companies ran campaigns which argued, as you are arguing, that litter was a consumer problem rather than a industrial problem (e.g., the "crying Indian" advert). The cigarette industry ran a campaign that insisted that the high rate of home fires are caused by a deficiency of highly carcinogenic flame retardants in home furnishings. Similarly, the fossil fuel industry currently runs campaigns which seek to make climate change an issue of personal responsibility ("we don't need legislation, we just need consumers to decide to switch to veganism and give up their cars").

> But a few powerful people could create huge changes all on their own. Hold them responsible is not pointless, it's our best hope for change.

I strongly disagree. Our best hope for change is public policy, notably border adjustments. If you want to protest at Cupertino, be my guest but that's wholly inadequate.

Interesting examples. How'd they work out?

More disposable bottles and fossil fuels are sold now than ever before. You can still buy cigarettes, and they're still as poisonous and addictive as ever, but most people don't want to buy them anymore.

Public policy worked in 0/3 cases. Changing consumer behavior worked in 1/3.

Those weren’t public policies, they were marketing campaigns to divert away from reasonable public policy solutions.

They were also public policy goals that were not solved by public policy solutions.

No one here claimed that every problem has been solved by public policy.

You suggested that personal choice was just a distraction from policy-making, but one of your own examples, cigarettes, shows otherwise.

Personal choice works.

There was a national campaign against tobacco. Moreover, no one is accidentally buying cigarettes like they’re buying carbon. It’s not like cigarettes were added to every product in unknown quantities and the public managed to avoid purchasing them. Similarly, people can’t simply opt out of carbon—it’s not like people were previously waltzing up to the counter and asking for some carbon, and now they’re not doing it any more. If that’s your “personal responsibility” example, it’s pretty desperate.

India and Vietnam, which are already sites of Apple production, are among the countries being seen as an alternative option to China[1]. However, parts for iPhone, iPad and Macs come from around the globe and are assembled in China, India and Vietnam. Apple depends upon a global supply chain to make final products. The production of the iPhone doubled this year in India because of ongoing geo-tension and strict lockdowns in China. However, that is just 7% of production iPhones. Anyway, I hope China and the USA reach some middle ground and keep Taiwan safe. Any war between these two giant countries would disaster the world economy and escalate to world war 3.

[1] https://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/apple-in...

This is the situation for the rest of the chip industry besides Intel, who also uses Taiwan TSMC fabs for some of their side operations (see Arc GPUs). Not just computer chips either, 37% of U.S. clothing imports are from China[0], for example.

0: https://www.just-style.com/analysis/analysis-china-market-sh...

So... we're in agreement that over-reliance on China is a bad thing, then?

I think so. I think the disagreement is in how to deal with the problem. Obviously tariffs are a terrible idea (if you think about it for more than a couple minutes). Alternatives like mandating exporters meet environmental and employment standards that meet or exceed ours would probably make a good sized dent.

At the same moment, the rest of the works is realizing the fact that us pretty much dictates what happens around the world.

Want to build your own x86 Chios? Guess what? You can't because Intel/and won't let you and even if they did , if it were one of the "not our allies list" people, the govt will step in. Same for Netherlands fab machine makers. They dictate who can they sell to or not..

That is why nations are investing in stuff like risc-v.

Tomorrow MasterCard/visa can be "ordered by govt " to pull out of a country and suddenly their card economy collapses. Unless they have an alternative, like India does with rupay or UPI which is being exported to other countries as a technology they can locally implement.

Same for stuff like aws or Google or github or basically the entire american internet giants.

You know if tomorrow whatsapp is ordered to stop service in say India what will happen? Without a local alternative already in place, WhatsApp and ipso facto us govt can literally hold that country for ransom. Whatsapp is a silly example but think about it.

Sure China is bad for labour but its not like Americans aren't fighting anszon for Union rights or for $15/hour pay and benefits? I'm not trying to say they are equal, just that its a spectrum.

For non Americans and non Chinese, Be it India or Russia or Iran, these two nations are just as offensive in different manners and it's just a matter of perspective

I get what you're saying; the US is far from the shining example of what a democracy should look like.

On the other side of that coin, though, China is taking us for a ride. Politically speaking, it's unwise to continue giving them power over our supply chain. Ultimately it's a monster fight with no real winners, but ensuring that world superpowers stay competitive with one another is how we prevent mutually assured destruction. Even for China's allies, I fail to see how hamstringing the CCP is a bad thing.

> but China could throw Apple into a huge crisis tomorrow if they were cut off, since it would take years to ramp up capacity elsewhere.

Would not be painless for China though. The thing about trade is, it’s trade. While Apple and American consumers benefit, so does China or obviously they wouldn’t trade. They’re not making our phones as a charity to us.

Yes, they've been taking the profits and building their military at a fast rate for 20 years...to do...something.

China has the 2nd largest military budget but only spends 1.7% GDP on it vs the global average of 2.2% and US at 3.5%. India the worlds 3rd largest spender is between them at 2.7% GDP, and #4 the UK spends 2.2% GDP.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_...

I may strongly dislike China, but a relative lack of military spending is one of their strengths.

China has the second largest military spending in the world, second only to the US. What's more, you really need to look at purchasing power parity (PPP). Basically, it costs less to do things in China, and that really matters for military spending. For example, soldiers in the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) receive far lower salaries than the equivalent US personnel. It's hard to figure out the true impact of this, but it's important to acknowledge. One article about this is here: https://voxeu.org/article/why-military-purchasing-power-pari... - which argues that US military spending is basically equal to Russia+China once that's considered. Also, there's geography to consider. If China is attacking next-door-neighbors while the US is trying to defend an ally at long distance, it would necessarily cost the US much more. All of this makes comparing military spending much more complicated, as well as depressing. It's my hope that military adventurism will be avoided.

I'm not sure the past ten months have been the greatest time for the argument that Russia gets almost a third of the US's military value after adjusting for PPP.

It's the data I had easily available.

While the amount of spending money has an effect, wisely spending the money pre-war and wisely executing war plans is obviously critical. Russia is demonstrating the weakness from widespread corruption (they got stuck on roads because they did not invest in logistics and on maintaining their vehicles), combined with spectacularly poor planning in the initial attack. It would be unwise to assume China will make such mistakes.

Anyway, it is my hope that war does not break out. The one guarantee about war is many deaths.

> China has the 2nd largest military budget but only spends 1.7% GDP on it

Not really sure that comparisons of either GDP or state spending on a purpose as a share of it (even if GDP were comparable) are as meaningful as people pretend across regimes with vastly different degrees of state/industry integration both generally (because of effect on GDP measures) or in the field of interest (because of effects on spending measures.)

Unfortunately, there's not good alternative measures, either.

What about the NATO requirement to spend 2% of GDP on defense? Isn't it strategic for the US to spend disproportionately more on the military to support allies' militaries (e.g., South Korea) and prevent the rise of competing superpowers?

https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_67655.htm

Trend rapidly changing, they were focused elsewhere previously.

The part that matters is what they’ll use it for (so far, signs point to authoritarian conquest of sovereign political entities)

As a share of GDP it was higher in 2019 at 1.9%, so it's growth it really a function of economic growth.

That 1.7% that China spends is probably equivalent (or more) to the 3.5% that the US spends. China steals the intellectual property that the US pays for. China takes advantage of lax environmental and green energy laws the the US military and supporting businesses must conform to. China takes advantage of near slave labor to build it’s weapons of war. It’s much economical for China to wage war than the United States.

China's long bet is that greed will outstrip any desire for North Americans to intervene with their autocracy. So far they've been absolutely correct.

Well there were enough examples from the past that made that a pretty safe bet.

Another thing to note is China is not just producer but huge consumer of Apple products. India with its rather small population of folks who can really afford Apple products, and primitive manufacturing capabilities at scale compare to China is going to remain minor distraction for at least couple of decades.

So sensible diversification is in distant future than many imagine.

Apparently [0] Apple is relocating production progressively in the US starting with Texas.

[0] https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/09/apples-new-mac-pro-to...

I am glad that there is native manufacturing, but let's but that in perspective:

Apple doesn't publish units-sold figures, but Iphone revenue is 5x that of Macs [0].

The Mac Pro is the least popular Mac. Again, I don't have number breakdowns, but Apple did say in the most recent keynote that launched the M2 Macbook Air that the Macbook Air, and the 13" Macbook Pro are their 2 most popular models.

So it's safe to say the Mac Pro represents an extreme fraction of Apple manufacturing.

[0] https://sixcolors.com/post/2022/07/apple-announces-83b-fisca...