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Comment by gleenn | Hacker News Reader

How is no one mentioning that China is threatening Taiwan. If the US ends up in a war with China, suddenly most Apple products would have serious operations problems if not being shut off completely. Cheap labor isn't a bad reason, but this is also a hedge against the heating politics between the West and both Russia and China.

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If the US goes to war with China, I can imagine Apples supply chain problems won’t be very high on our priority lists…

No, but it will be priority #1 for Apple, which is why they're opening other plants and not whoever you thin "us" is.

Also based on recent analysis many countries e.g. China, South Korea have increased exports to Russia including dual use technologies which are prohibited under recent sanctions.

This combined with upcoming war games involving China and Russia shows clearly where their allegiances lie.

So the risk of China being economically punished is not insignificant and Apple is very likely to be caught in the cross-fire if it does happen.

I would be interested in that analysis, as I've read the exact opposite. China will be the sole supplier of many goods for Russians as they have nowhere else to go, but simultaneously China is careful not to overstep bounds as it does not want to upset the US, a trade partner about 10 times more important than Russia. It also stopped/delayed many promised infra investments in Russia.

As for allegiances, China has none. Not with anybody. China has no moralistic or principal allies. It simply does what is best for China, and happily plays all sides all at once.

I have a hard time blaming Southe Korea here. Russia and China are their literal neighbors. If China decided to invade SK, their relationship with the US wouldn't save them.

Russia wouldn't have quite as much military success there right now (given their preoccupation in Ukraine), but it makes sense to keep them happy.

And how does that help when raw materials still need to come from China and many of the components?

If the US and China end up going to war, Apple’s products would be the last of my worries.

Vietnam is also a communist (which we invaded and got badly defeated btw), dictatorship loving (Cuba, Venezuela, ....) country, whatever you see in China, you also see in Vietnam, media isn't just as vicious with Vietnam. In the other hand, Vietnam have a bright future, they have developed significantly in the last decade, I wish them well.

Truth is not very HN friendly, seems like lol.

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