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by sneak 1418 days ago
100% of Apple's important chips depend on Taiwan continuing to be Taiwan (and TSMC continuing to be TSMC).

~100% of Apple's manufacturing depends on China continuing to permit hundreds of thousands of Chinese nationals in Chinese factories (Foxconn's plants in Zhengzhou and elsewhere) building Apple products.

I'm not sure what you mean by "knuckle under" in this context, but Apple is, today, wholly dependent upon Taiwanese and Chinese manufacturing (for chips, and assembly, respectively).

If there is a war between China and Taiwan, or China and the US, Apple stands to lose the most of any single organization, I think.
3 comments
spookthesunset 1418 days ago
Damn. “Any single organization” is a hell of a qualifier. I mean if there was some war every company that builds physical shit would get fucked. But I’m hard pressed to think of any other single org that would be more fucked.

Would that be true based on market cap? Cause I’m sure countless auto manufacturers, airplane manufacturers, elevator manufacturers, consumer goods manufacturers, and god knows what else would be equally fucked. But by market cap none of them would be as fucked as Apple.

Hmmm. Weird…

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mountainb 1418 days ago
Yes, they are dependent on China and Taiwan, but they will knuckle under to the point to which the company is seriously disrupted if not destroyed once the war starts. I think it behooves everyone at Apple to prepare for the war and to figure out likely alternatives, and to also assume that the usual grey market way of getting around it will be anticipated by the federal government, and under war conditions the federal government may have a harsher point of view on it than they usually would with country of origin manipulation.

Even if the US wins a war over Taiwan, it'd probably take a long time to resolve, and trade would be disrupted for long enough that nothing is getting off the island until peace is re-established. Right now, if nothing changes with the US-China trajectory, war is coming. If the trajectory changes, that might change.

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squarefoot 1418 days ago
To me the only left long term solution is to move as much technology and specialized workforce out of China to rebuild chip farms in different countries. I understand it's a very long and costly process, but also the mere starting it could work as a leverage.
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sneak 1418 days ago
Another solution is simply "don't have a war with your trading partners".

What we have today is working fine.

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