DSET and Business Weekly Host an Experts Dialogue with the Author of Apple in China, Spotlighting China’s Manufacturing Power and Shifts in Global Supply Chains

On February 9, the Research Institute for Democracy, Society, and Emerging Technology (DSET), in collaboration with Business Weekly, hosted DSET x Business Weekly | Experts’ Dialogue: After “Apple in China” — Reshaping Global Supply Chains Beyond China. The event featured Apple in China author Patrick McGee in Taiwan for a public dialogue examining China’s manufacturing rise and the evolving structure of global supply chains. The talk drew a full audience of policymakers, industry leaders, academics, and media representatives to discuss the structural and geopolitical implications of global supply chain reconfiguration.

A Transnational Dialogue: Patrick McGee in Conversation with Taiwan’s Leading Scholars

The dialogue was moderated by Jeremy Chang, CEO of DSET. Joining McGee were two distinguished Taiwanese scholars: C. Y. Cyrus Chu, Academician of Academia Sinica and co-author of The Ultimate Economic Conflict between China and Democratic Countries, and Jieh-Min Wu, Distinguished Research Fellow at the Institute of Sociology, Academia Sinica and author of Rival Partners. Drawing from their respective works, the three speakers offered complementary perspectives—corporate, institutional, and political-economic—on how China became deeply embedded in the global economy and how structural differences between Leninist state capitalism and liberal market democracies continue to shape supply chain dynamics.

Examining China’s Manufacturing Rise from Corporate, Institutional, and Structural Perspectives

The discussion began with the historical formation of China’s manufacturing ecosystem. McGee explained that Apple did not initially move to China because of preexisting technological sophistication. Rather, between 1996 and 2003, when Apple was close to bankruptcy and lacked the balance sheet to build its own manufacturing capacity, it was forced to offshore production globally. After experimenting across Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, Eastern Europe, and the United States, Apple discovered that only China could simultaneously deliver unprecedented scale and speed. Even though early quality levels were uneven, Apple responded by dispatching engineers, restructuring factory processes, and institutionalizing quality control—effectively building technical competence within China’s manufacturing base. As iPods and iPhones scaled exponentially, Apple came to exercise deep operational influence over roughly 1,600 factories, most of them located in China.

McGee argued that Apple’s product imagination combined with China’s manufacturing scale created a powerful synergy. Inadvertently, Apple played a quasi “nation-building” role in upgrading China’s industrial capacity. Since 2008, Apple’s supply chain has reportedly trained approximately 30 million workers, and more than a decade ago Apple’s annual investment in China was estimated at around US$55 billion—far exceeding most national manufacturing subsidy programs. These investments became a major driver of China’s manufacturing ascent and a defining feature of today’s global supply chain structure.

C. Y. Cyrus Chu situated this corporate story within a broader institutional framework. He emphasized that China operates under a Leninist political system in which political authority takes precedence over economic rules. The judiciary, information flows, and digital governance structures ultimately serve party objectives, generating structural asymmetries in market access, competition policy, and industrial organization. In this context, Apple in China illustrates how a market-driven multinational corporation can become structurally locked into an uneven competitive environment. For Taiwan and other democratic economies, Chu argued, such asymmetries cannot be addressed solely through market mechanisms or corporate compliance; they reflect deeper institutional divergence.

Jieh-Min Wu highlighted the layered structural conditions behind China’s manufacturing success. Apple’s experience was not simply the result of one firm’s decision, but rather the convergence of multiple forces: China’s stratified labor and hukou system providing large-scale manufacturing labor; global brands shifting production risks downward to suppliers and workers; and Taiwanese manufacturers serving as integrators and translators between global markets and China’s production system. Understanding this history, Wu noted, is essential for Taiwan as it reassesses its strategic position within a rapidly evolving global supply chain landscape.

Rethinking the Future Order of Global Supply Chains

Turning to the future, the speakers addressed whether emerging industries such as AI, robotics, and advanced computing could truly move beyond China. McGee was cautious, arguing that narratives about rapid relocation—such as rising iPhone assembly in India—often overstate the extent of real structural diversification. Final assembly may shift, but critical components, engineering ecosystems, and upstream materials remain deeply concentrated in China. Moreover, political leverage and market size continue to anchor multinational firms in the Chinese ecosystem. In his view, there is no clear “next China” capable of replicating the full industrial ecosystem that China has built over decades.

Chu further observed that supply chain realignment will be shaped by two competing forces: the rapid formation and reformation of industrial coalitions among like-minded democracies, and China’s continued ability to deploy state subsidies and systemic mobilization to sustain cost advantages. Mature industries driven primarily by cost competition have historically gravitated toward China, and similar dynamics could emerge in segments of new industries if cost structures dominate strategic calculations.

Wu concluded by emphasizing that Taiwanese firms’ gradual diversification away from China is part of a longer structural shift that began well before recent geopolitical tensions. Taiwan’s current opportunity lies in semiconductors, AI hardware, and advanced manufacturing services. However, converting today’s momentum into long-term strategic positioning will require securing critical technological nodes and deepening cooperative networks with trusted partners.

The dialogue concluded with an active Q&A session and wide-ranging exchanges. By bridging corporate history, institutional analysis, and long-term political economy research, the event provided a nuanced framework for understanding China’s manufacturing rise and the potential trajectories of global supply chains in the years ahead.