Bad Apple? How the World’s Greatest Company Changed Chinese Tech

In 2013, to mark International Consumers Day, China's state-run TV network labelled Apple a 'bad company'. More than a decade later, despite claiming to rely on multinationals from 50 different countries, Apple still has nearly 100% of its supply chain in China. In this episode, we look at how Apple became so dependent on China, what it did to rehabilitate its image in the eyes of the Chinese government, and how it has influenced China's aspiring global tech giants. Graeme is joined by Jianggan Li, the founder and CEO of Singapore-based Momentum Works, and the co-author of Seeing the Unseen: Behind Chinese Tech Giants' Global Venturing and Patrick McGee, Financial Times journalist and the author of Apple in China: The Capture of the World's Greatest Company . Image: c/- Gerd Eichmann, 2020. Apple Store on Nanjing Lu, Shanghai. Transcripts are available at

You can listen to Bad Apple? How the World’s Greatest Company Changed Chinese Tech online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Bad Apple? How the World’s Greatest Company Changed Chinese Tech is an episode from The Little Red Podcast by The Little Red Podcast.

This episode is 49:17 long.

This episode was published on Jan 7, 2026.

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