Tim Cook stood inside Apple’s newest Shanghai store, the second-largest Apple Store in the world, and was explicit about the company’s bargain with China. “There’s no supply chain in the world that’s more critical to us than China,” he told China Daily. Apple’s relationship with Chinese suppliers, Cook said, was almost 30 years old. “We’ve been building up and investing more and more.” That was in March 2024.
Two years later, in April 2026, Apple announced that Cook will hand the CEO title to John Ternus on September 1. As executive chairman, Cook will, in Apple’s words,
“assist with certain aspects of the company, including engaging with policymakers around the world.”
Cook was right about the supply chain. Every multinational operates by some government’s permission. Apple’s problem, under Cook, is that it became entirely dependent on China’s goodwill. The Chinese Communist Party has declared technology a national project, not a market handled by private companies alone: at the 2022 Party Congress, President Xi Jinping told delegates that China must “resolutely win the battle in key core technologies.” Apple sits at the center of that battle.
The result is that Apple now operates as two different companies—one in the United States, where it speaks freely and uses every lever that democracy allows, and one in China, where it complies, stays silent, and ships what Beijing approves.
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