At least Google and Samsung don't give in to dictatorships. Yes, hypothetically the US and South Korea hold some power over them... However Google has stood up to Russia, China and others. Unlike Apple...
What happens when China invades Taiwan? Will they aid our enemy?
You can't fight city hall.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusiv...
It works precisely the same in every huge superpower. Absolutely nothing about this situation is unique to China.
I really wish you could talk to some more manufacturing types -- there are many on this site. A lot of things at scale can't be done anywhere except in China.
Now, you can argue that's just about "saving money", because Apple should have built its own automated ports and infrastructure and commodity trading hubs and paid to relocate workers to create a bespoke manufacturing center somewhere else -- but subject to realistic constraints, there was China and no second option to produce iPhones at scale.
This is the situation now, but was it also the same situation when Apple started iPod production there in 2001?
From what I understand most of these electronics supply chain advantages China enjoys now are due to large companies like Apple building those out in China in the late 90's and early 2000's. You might remember Japan had a massive electronics manufacturing industry which became "too expensive", so China was the answer to the need of cheap(slave?) labor.
This doesn’t excuse them – I think MBAs gave China enough leverage to include Harvard’s business school in human rights lawsuits – but it’s the kind of thing which is larger than the company whose logo is on the box and the answer has to be legislative.
I'm calling BS. Money is based on volume (supply) and demand. China does mainly assembly which makes up a paltry 4% of costs [0] and assembly is low skill labor. With a 25% profit margin, there's no way they couldn't spend/invest in other countries to build up assembly capacity.
[0]: https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/apple-iphone-7-and-...