Didi

"Xi hurled a series of regulatory thunderbolts at China’s high-flying tech companies, including Didi, the country’s largest ride-hailing company, and Ant Financial, the payments company owned by Jack Ma, China’s best-known entrepreneur. Chinese tech founders (and their investors) were astonished to discover that Xi Jinping could erase a trillion dollars from corporate valuations over the course of just a few months. The leadership thought it was straightforward to reorient the nation’s tech priorities away from consumer platforms and toward science-based industries, like semiconductors and aviation, that serve the nation’s strategic needs. Beijing took years to appreciate how its actions had scared the daylights out of entrepreneurs and investors."

"Just twenty-two days after their meeting, Apple announced a $1 billion investment in the ride-hailing start-up. Liu said it happened “like lightning.” The investment stunned tech observers. Sure, Apple had acquired plenty of companies outright in the past, and it certainly had the cash, but the Cupertino behemoth almost never took a stake in a start-up—especially not an app developer that competed against rivals within its own ecosystem. It was the largest single investment Didi had ever received. Cook’s explanation didn’t exactly hold water: “We are extremely impressed by the business they’ve built and their excellent leadership team, and we look forward to supporting them as they grow.” His comments weren’t wrong so much as beside the point. Hundreds, even thousands of app companies would have been good investments since the App Store debuted in 2008, but Apple hadn’t bought a stake in any. Most observers had an inkling of what was really going on. “The deal seems like a calculated move by Apple to curry favor in China,” wrote *The Information*."

"The second function the Didi investment served related to Apple’s surprise at how slowly its digital payments platform, Apple Pay, was taking hold. It saw Didi as a solid platform for expansion. At the time, WeChat Pay and Alipay were vying for dominance, spending as much as RMB 40 million ($7 million) per day to acquire new customers. Apple was looking for a way to compete. An investment in Didi and a relationship with Liu helped Apple establish *guanxi*—political relationships—in two budding industries, aided by Apple taking a seat on the board. Meanwhile, the Apple investment gave Didi international name recognition, further fueled by Cook. The week Apple’s investment was announced—five days before his secret meeting at the CCP headquarters—Cook met with Liu in Beijing, where they hailed a ride together and visited an Apple Store. The next year Liu was named one of *Time* magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world. Her profile was penned by Cook."