When I was young, I lived in nightly fear of China. I lived on a military base in the 1980s, and read conspiratorialist material my parents had in the house. One of my greatest fears was China's army of hundreds of millions of men. Today I don't fear China. I have a ten-year tourist visa for China and will be heading to Hong Kong next week.

I believe the difference is economic engagement. The economic interests of both America and China are too entangled now to imagine a military war between the two countries.

So on the one extreme is sanctions a la Iran or North Korea, and on the other extreme is the full unlimited economic engagement we have now. If the choices are that stark, I choose engagement every time.

The choice isn't that stark, though. One can still engage but with limits and conditions, right? It seems likely that even if Apple completely withdrew all manufacturing from China, or with even more difficulty and expense, completely withdrew all supply of raw materials, there would still be enough economic engagement between China and other companies to make open hostility unpalatable. But Apple is definitely one of the bigger companies doing business there, and they would have lost any influence there at all.

Right now Apple can say they've brought the standard of living for employees of factories which build Apple gear up quite a bit. Not to western standards, obviously, but far, far higher than they were. If Apple leaves, do those changes remain? Or do the standards drop back down to pre-Apple levels, sending people back into poverty and hardship? I don't know, do you?

Where would Apple send manufacturing next? They were producing the Mac Pro in the US, which I think is one of the largest reasons that platform has stagnated for years now. Do you have a suggestion of another country that provides the resources Apple needs while also providing a standard of living for every citizen that satisfies you? I mean, does the standard of living for every citizen of the US satisfy you?

Anyway, it's a complicated issue, and I'm not arguing that Apple shouldn't continue to do more, but I think disengagement is not the right move here, for Apple, for Chinese citizens, for anyone.

I wonder what negotiations and power struggles are going on behind the scenes?

If you think the leash doesn't hurt and China is liable to be friendly towards America, that's your moral crusade. In my opinion, things have already gone too far.

Another "problem" is that despite its corruption and autocracy, the CCP still manages to make life better for the average Chinese. On the street it is not a hopeless hell, so right now giving up some of their freedom looks like a good deal to them.

So even if Apple manage to break free from its manufacturing lock in, that's a lot of general inertia to go against. Also, considering that Apple approach to privacy is more and more at odd in the Western World, they have enough on their plate already.

Beyond having their manufacturing there, it's also the biggest untapped market in the world.

What efforts has Apple made in order to make manufacturing in nations like China less appealing?

Have they collaborated with other large companies and even governments, to make doing business in authoritarian nations unappealing?

It’s the inaction and contentment with the status quo that distresses me.

I suspect Apple is tolerated only because so much of Apple's manufacturing costs are in China.

Those calls have mostly gone unanswered and Apple in particular has repeatedly gone out of its way to double down on its China relationship over that same time period.

I think it would be pretty tough to not allow Apple (the largest US company) to operate in China. At that point US government, WTO and other organizations will step in and there will be serious economic retaliation that I'm sure China doesn't want.