Apple in China: The Capture of the World's Greatest Company

*** THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER *** 

* WINNER OF THE SABEW BEST IN BUSINESS BOOK AWARDS 2025 FOR BUSINESS REPORTING * 

What if the greatest business success story of the twenty-first century was hiding the West’s gravest mistake?

For two decades, Apple poured billions into China, training millions of workers and building the most advanced supply and manufacturing system in history. But those same investments transferred knowledge, skills and power, handing China the tools to challenge America’s dominance and putting Apple in the middle of a new Cold War between two superpowers.

Based on hundreds of exclusive interviews, Patrick McGee’s gripping exposé reveals Apple’s vulnerability for the first time – and shows how one company’s triumph inadvertently reshaped the global balance of power.

‘Devastatingly clear’ New York Times 

‘Scrupulously reported’ New Yorker 

‘Absolutely riveting’ Peter Frankopan  

‘Disturbing and enlightening’ Chris Miller 

'This is the best book about Apple ever written’ Ben Thompson, Stratechery 

About the Author :
Patrick McGee was the Financial Times’s principal Apple reporter from 2019 to 2023, during which time he won a San Francisco Press Club Award for his coverage. He joined the newspaper in 2013, in Hong Kong, before reporting from Germany and California. Previously, he was a bond reporter at The Wall Street Journal. He has a master’s degree in global diplomacy from SOAS, University of London, and a degree in religious studies from the University of Toronto. He and his family make their home in the Bay Area.

Review :
'This is the best book about Apple ever written, one of the best books about China ever written, and one of the best books about tech, period' ‘As Patrick McGee makes devastatingly clear in his smart and comprehensive Apple in China, the American company’s decision under Tim Cook, the current C.E.O., to manufacture about 90 percent of its products in China has created an existential vulnerability not just for Apple, but for the United States – nurturing the conditions for Chinese technology to outpace American innovation . . . [a] persuasive exposé of the trillion-dollar company’s uncomfortably close relationship with the global power . . . what began as a feat of manufacturing has troubling consequences for the entire world’  ‘An eye-opening exposé . . . 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 . . . 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. Let’s hope for Apple’s sake that Donald Trump doesn’t read this book’ ‘Explains how Apple became inseparable from China and what the fracturing of global trade means for one of the world’s most valuable companies . . . Mr McGee excels at describing the intricacies of supply chains . . . his timely book poses a question for investors and policymakers alike: can the company thrive without China? If the answer is no, then a failure to end the trade war will bruise Apple even more deeply than the global economy’ ‘Flips the usual narrative about Apple and China on its head . . . forcefully argues that Apple may be the single biggest supporter of President Xi’s “Made in China 2025” plan’  ‘This book is totemic and important, and hits the shelves just as the United States and China teeter on the brink of a trade war. Nothing joins the American and Chinese economies so profoundly as Apple. It may well be that Cook and Apple steer the world through these troubled waters. Or it might be that Apple is sunk by them. We all know that manufacturing, logistics and supply chains are important. McGee has managed to make them thrilling as well’ 'Apple is more than the world's greatest company. It is integral to the whole culture of globalisation. Patrick McGee not only narrates the epic history of Apple, but explains how, in effect, it got taken over by China, the world's greatest illiberal power. To call this book a page-turner is almost to diminish its importance. It is a once-in-a-generation read'  'Absolutely riveting. An extraordinary story, expertly told – and one that has important implications for Apple, for tech and for global geoeconomics'  'Deeply researched, disturbing and enlightening, Apple in China reveals how Apple enabled China’s rise, seemingly at the cost of its own future. In these pages we watch as the world's most profitable company gets outmaneuvered by the world's most powerful dictator. Using an impressively broad palette, McGee paints a picture of Apple CEO Tim Cook resolutely trying to save costs by placing nearly all of the company’s advanced manufacturing base in Beijing’s grip, only to find it impossible to wriggle free' 'A masterpiece of investigative journalism, replete with revelations. Every iPhone owner will want to read this book, but no Apple employee will risk being seen with it. McGee shows how China played the long game, convincing Apple to invest on an unprecedented scale and, inadvertently, help build its grand authoritarian project. This book is a warning for anyone eager to do business in hostile countries' 'A tour-de-force account of how the world's most influential company empowered the inexorable rise of the regime that now shapes its – and our – future. Paced like a thriller and spanning the years from before Steve Jobs’s fateful decision to outsource production to more recent times which shine a fresh spotlight on Tim Cook’s careful wooing of Donald Trump, Apple in China captures every twist and turn of the tech giant’s off-kilter and decidedly off-script relationship with the authoritarian state. What will surprise many is how China ensnared a corporate titan by matching and then surpassing its knack for ruthless efficiency and global dominance'