Liberals' Obsession with Foreign Labor Used as Bargaining Chip by China
Apple CEO Tim Cook might soon be eating crow over his praises of globalism during a speech he gave last year in China.
The Chinese government invited the tech mogul to share his thoughts at their annual China Development Forum, according to an article in The Wall Street Journal at the time, and he didn’t disappoint the communist ideologies of his hosts.
Cook expressed a desire that world leaders not give up on the globalist agenda: “I think the reality is you can see that countries in the world … that isolate themselves, it’s not good for their people.”
But now that Apple has attained trillion-dollar valuation, the Chinese want a little of that love to flow back into their own country, especially since they earned those numbers on the backs of cheap Chinese labor.
China’s The People’s Daily intimated they might use this labor leverage to twist some American arms if the trade wars heat up between our two countries:
“China is by far the most important overseas market for the US-based Apple, leaving it exposed if Chinese people make it a target of anger and nationalist sentiment. China doesn’t want to close its doors to Apple despite the trade conflict, but if the US company wants to earn good money in China, its needs to share its development dividends with the Chinese people.”
Fortune Magazine illustrated the possible conflict in more delicate terms, describing the Chinese strategy as “bargaining chips”:
“The report called those companies, including Apple, ‘bargaining chips’ in the conflict and suggested the iPhone maker might want to keep an eye out.”
Regardless of how you look at it, Apple might be in the middle of a tenuous tug-of-war if China retaliates against U.S. trade policy.
Never let it be said that China makes idle threats
“Last week, China said it was ready to retaliate with tariffs on around $60 billion of U.S. goods,” CNBC reported, “just days after the U.S. administration revealed that Trump had spoken with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and asked him to consider increasing the proposed levies on $200 billion of Chinese goods up to 25 percent, from 10 percent.”
Maybe it’s important to put a fine point on the irony here.
Globalist Apple profits heavily off the backs of cut-rate Chinese labor. Apple’s communist Chinese business partners threaten to put the squeeze on them if they don’t redistribute some of that trillion-dollar wealth back their way.
I wonder if Tim Cook was thinking about this kind of Chinese puzzle when he made his speech in China last year.
What’s a liberal to do?
At this point, Apple isn’t commenting on the conundrum.
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