Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

Dan's Biz Bookshelf: 'Apple in China: The Capture of the World’s Greatest Company'

Most of what we hear about Apple’s relationship with China is half-baked punditry or political noise. However, Patrick McGee’s Apple in China: The Capture of the World’s Greatest Company is a tour de force that peels back the PR polish and shows us what’s really going on behind that gleaming bitten fruit.

This isn’t just another book about Apple’s genius design or slick marketing. This is the guts of the machine. It’s about how the world’s most valuable and admired company isn’t merely working with China, it’s intertwined with it in ways that are deeper, more complex, and more concerning than anyone in Cupertino wants to admit.

McGee, a seasoned reporter with The Financial Times, doesn’t speculate. He reports, digs, and uncovers jaw-dropping information.

In Chapter 4, aptly titled “The Factory as Fortress,” McGee shares the almost surreal production ramp-up at Foxconn, Apple’s key manufacturing partner. How surreal? Foxconn once hired 50,000 workers in a single weekend to meet Apple’s iPhone production demand That’s not just impressive, that’s industrial warfare—and Apple orchestrated it like a maestro leading a symphony of soldering irons.

However, this book isn’t just about numbers; it’s about alignment. Apple’s obsessive culture of secrecy and control—traits that once seemed so unique to Steve Jobs—is a perfect fit for China’s top-down, state-coordinated industrial strategy. As McGee’s book reveals, the Apple-China relationship isn’t transactional, it’s symbiotic. Apple embedded itself into China’s economic bloodstream—which is where Apple CEO Tim Cook comes in.

McGee treats Cook with the respect he deserves, calling him a supply chain mastermind. Cook bet Apple’s future on China’s unmatched ability to scale, and it worked. Under him, Apple became a $3 trillion juggernaut. McGee quotes Cook: “Nobody does manufacturing like China.”

Nonetheless, with geopolitical tensions flaring and Washington talking tough, Apple has made a lot of noise about moving assembly lines to India and Vietnam. However, McGee makes it clear the reality doesn’t match the rhetoric. Sure, a few final assembly plants are setting up shop elsewhere. But the deep ecosystem—suppliers, logistics hubs, engineering talent, and material sourcing—are still very much rooted in China and, as McGee observes astutely, “Apple is not in China. Apple is of China.” That line alone is worth the price of the book.

McGee shows how Apple navigates the stickier parts of doing business in China (censorship, surveillance, and state pressure) by complying with Chinese demands to remove VPN apps. It stores iCloud data for Chinese users on servers run by a state-owned partner. Is that uncomfortable? Absolutely. But McGee isn’t writing an op-ed. He’s writing reality—Apple, like many U.S. companies, is playing a game where access comes at a price.

Still, Apple in China isn’t an Apple-bashing book. It’s a balanced, eye-opening, and empathetic portrait of a company trying to maintain control where control is never completely possible. McGee’s reporting is airtight, but it’s his storytelling that elevates the book. He introduces us to factory workers, mid-level managers, and Apple insiders whose lives are shaped by this cross-Pacific behemoth.

This book should be required reading for tech CEOs, policymakers, or anyone who owns an iPhone and wants to know how it got into their pocket. McGee shows us that globalization isn’t just a buzzword; it’s a web, and Apple and China are caught in it together.

Dan Beaulieu is president of D.B. Management Group.

Title: Apple in China: The Capture of the World’s Greatest Company
Author: Patrick McGee
Copyright: 2025 Scribner
Pages: 448
Price: $25.09