Chinese government

"This appealing theory was also naive, and it remains so. It assumes that once the theory is developed, and thus the strategy formulated, implementation goes without saying. In fact, as with the Chinese Great Leap Forward and as the Soviets also experienced, implementation is the crux of the matter. Human beings are capable of idealistic mobilization, but only when the outcome is not in doubt or when they have no choice. That was the case with the national liberation struggle. When results are lacking, they discredit the strategy, and demobilization of people follows. This accelerates the movement toward defeat, regardless of the strength of the leaders and the political parties that support them. Mao Zedong was a powerful man, and his party controlled all of China. This did not prevent the catastrophes now revealed by the Chinese government. The Great Leap Forward caused famines that resulted in the deaths of more than 30 million Chinese. The Cultural Revolution was even worse for China’s economic development capacity."

"“China invested an enormous amount of money,” says a senior Apple executive at the time. “Uncle Terry—they subsidized the shit out of him—but he doesn’t talk about that… They paid for a lot. I mean, I’d walk into a factory, and it’d be all brand-new machine tools—and the Chinese government paid for all of it.”"

"His handling of the situation earned him some credibility in Cupertino. It was now easier to accept that a soft approach to the reseller issue wasn’t the problem. But as Apple’s business boomed in China, the yellow cows were just one challenge. More broadly, Ford worried that Apple was losing leverage with the Chinese government and failing to exert its own power. As early as 2010 he’d told Bob Mansfield, Apple’s head of hardware: “All you gotta do is open up a factory in Vietnam and you’re gonna get some nervous Chinese government officials.”"

"Over the following three weeks, as the media attacks widened, Cupertino learned that treating Chinese government officials like vendors in their supply chain wasn’t going to fly. Only then did Cook pen an apology letter, in Mandarin, for Apple’s China website. (According to one person, the Apple CEO also flew to Beijing for a secret meeting with China’s top officials. “The Chinese would never accept a written apology,” this person says. “You have to lose face in front of them, and bow.”)"

"Cook, risk-averse by temperament, wasn’t so sure. But prior to the meeting, Gou had already met with Apple engineers in China, who were feeding him details and forecasts that were more optimistic than the views in Cupertino. So Gou made a handshake deal on the spot. He offered to personally facilitate the necessary actions to establish mass production, in exchange for taking all the orders when—he believed—they inevitably emerged. “Foxconn is going to underwrite the investment,” he told Cook. “I’ll build two campuses with Chinese government partners, along with the provincial and central government. And when your volume is there, I’m going to build the products for you.”"

"Apple, meanwhile, had become too intertwined with China. Guthrie had been hired to help understand the country and to navigate it. And Apple had followed through—very successfully. But it had burned so many boats, as the saying goes, that Guthrie felt its fate was married to China’s and there was no way out. “The cost of doing business in China today is a high one, and it is paid by any and every company that comes looking to tap into its markets or leverage its workforce,” he later wrote in a blog. “Quite simply, you don’t get to do business in China today without doing exactly what the Chinese government wants you to do. Period. No one is immune. No one.”"

"Latif Latif, chairman of the Global IPv6 Forum, clearly pointed out, “China will be the largest market for IPv6, and the key applications of IPv6 will first appear in China.” IPv6 is a technological highlight of the data communication industry. In October 2003, the Chinese government announced the launch of the CNGI project and planned to build the world’s largest IPv6 network by the end of 2005. This will provide Chinese communication equipment manufacturers with a “once-in-a-lifetime” opportunity."

"Play is itself quite a story. I founded it in 2005 at a time when in my opinion the Polish telecoms market was badly run, being dominated by big European companies, each of which was having to deal with tussles between its shareholders. Vodafone had a dispute with its Polish partner that ended with its Polish operation being bought by Polkomtel; France’s Vivendi and Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile were fighting over their asset in Poland; and France Telecom’s Orange was having a problem with its local partner. We saw an opportunity for a fourth player to start afresh and try to capture market share, so we sneaked into the market by buying telecoms licences. We didn’t bother with 2G and decided to bid only for 3G licences. It was unheard of for a private equity company to buy licences without any experience in building the infrastructure. But we found Netia, a small fixed-line independent, to help us as a local player in the Polish market. We ended up outbidding 3, the mobile phone provider backed by Hong Kong’s Hutchison Whampoa. The key to making this work was getting funding, which we did principally from China Development Bank. We had spotted in our privatisation and tender processes for upgrading Bulgaria’s telecoms that the Chinese government has a long-term strategic plan to become a major player in telecoms infrastructure. We saw that the best kit was coming from Chinese subcontractors, so we went straight to them and found that they had big plans."