Who are the US managers who do not give up on business with China?
The White House and the Communist Party are waging economic warfare, but American top executives are flying to China in search of business. Here's what Apple's Cook and Qualcomm's Amon (and others) said at the China Development Forum. All names
Political competition between the United States and China does not stop business. This is confirmed by the record numbers of bilateral trade , which exceeded 690 billion dollars in 2022, and confirmed by the many executives of American companies present at the China Development Forum, the annual conference organized by the Chinese government to promote contacts between the community domestic and foreign business. This latest edition, which ended on Monday, was particularly important, because it symbolized Beijing's "return to business" after a very long phase of closure.
PRESENT APPLE AND QUALCOMM, BUT ALSO JOHNSON & JOHNSON, BMW AND NOT ONLY
As reported by the Wall Street Journal , the CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, and that of the semiconductor company Qualcomm, Cristiano Amon, participated in the Forum. Also present were the executives of the pharmaceutical groups Johnson & Johnson and Abbott Laboratories, of the consumer goods company Procter & Gamble but also – leaving America – representatives of BMW and Mercedes-Benz (automotives), Shell (energy), of Deloitte (consulting) and Rio Tinto (minerals).
WHAT GEORGIEVA (IMF) SAID
In total, there were more than fifty foreign managers at the China Development Forum. Even some international bodies have sent high-level officials: for the International Monetary Fund, for example, there was the chief operating officer Kristalina Georgieva, who said that each percentage point increase in China's GDP will give a stimulus of 0.3 per percent to the growth of other Asian countries.
TIM COOK APPLAUDS CHINA
During the event, Tim Cook spoke of a "symbiotic" relationship between Apple and China. He announced that the company will increase spending on an education program in China's countryside to 100 million yuan ($15 million) and – according to local media reports – praised the technological progress of the People's Republic: "innovation is developing very fast in China, and I think it will accelerate further,” he said.
During his visit to the country, Cook met with several Chinese government officials, including Commerce Minister Wang Wentao.
THE TIES BETWEEN APPLE AND CHINA
Tim Cook was the architect of Apple's expansion in China: it began a decade ago, and now the country accounts for about 20 percent of the company's sales. From 2015 onwards, thanks above all to the iPhone, Apple has recorded revenues of over 40 billion a year in China; in the last fiscal year it almost reached $75 billion in sales in the country.
WHAT AMON DID (QUALCOMM)
In his speech at the China Development Forum, Qualcomm's Cristiano Amon spoke instead of 5G and declared that he wanted to support Chinese plans to accelerate digital development: however, connectivity is a very sensitive sector, at the center of the geopolitical competition between Washington and Beijing .
Like Cook, Amon also met with Minister Wang to discuss trade and Qualcomm's plans for China.
THE PRESENCE OF SAMSUNG
The Register , a newspaper that pays great attention to the technology industry, wrote that the executive chairman of Samsung, Lee Jae-yong, attended the China Development Forum, and that it was his first visit to China since the outbreak of the pandemic. coronavirus, in 2020. The South Korean company owns several factories in various locations in the country, and Lee met with Chen Min'er, Communist Party secretary for the municipality of Tientsin (or Tianjin), where Samsung owns a factory.
THE GOAL OF CHINA
According to The Register , the China Development Forum has allowed China to put pressure on American business leaders to pressure the US government to easetrade restrictions on Beijing.
– Read also: Chip, all the interests of Biden and Cook (Apple) in the factories of the Taiwanese Tsmc
Furthermore, China would like to reverse the process of (partial) manufacturing detachment from China and the relocation of production to countries such as Vietnam.
– Read also: All business (old and new) of Germany with China and Vietnam
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/tim-cook-apple-cina-development-forum/ on Tue, 28 Mar 2023 11:34:45 +0000.