A 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.
Smart and comprehensive ... McGe...comes up with a startling conclusion, backed by meticulous reporting ... McGee has a journalist’s knack for developing scenes with a few curated details ... Sometimes, McGee is too comprehensive. He draws interesting portraits of characters who disappear after a few paragraphs. We do not need to know the full name of the law firm that Apple hired in preparation for a possible bankruptcy in the mid-1990s or even the minutiae of pre-China personnel wrangles, especially when centuries of Chinese history are compressed to less than a page. There are a few Chinese misspellings and miscues—the surname Wang is not, in fact, pronounced quite as 'Wong.' And it would have been nice to have gotten more perspectives of Chinese people ... But these are quibbles with an otherwise persuasive exposé .
Eye-opening ... McGee... breaks down in much greater detail the relationship between this capitalist company and communist nation ... Apple is notoriously secretive, but McGee proffers dozens of first-hand accounts of how the company essentially bumbled its way into becoming hooked on China ... McGee gives Apple, to my mind, too easy a ride over how it has largely decided to ignore the terrible working conditions in Chinese factories in favour of getting its products made as quickly and cheaply as possible. There is, as well, too much detail on some of the smaller characters who helped build up Apple’s manufacturing power. But as an insight into how this odd couple became so entwined—in Apple’s manufacturing and engineering processes, design secrets, business partnerships and a large chunk of its sales—Apple in China is astonishing.
Business journalist McGee explains in this astute account just how Apple, partnering with China, became a global colossus, while placing itself, and possibly the world’s economy, in peril.
