Most people acknowledge that “Apple wouldn’t be Apple without China”, writes Patrick McGee in his new book, Apple in China. What few realise is that “China wouldn’t be China today without Apple”. When the company began shifting its manufacturing operations there in the early 2000s, the Chinese labourers lacked the skills and expertise to do the job. So Apple taught them. American engineers were flown in “by the planeload”; if the factories they used didn’t have the right kit, Apple would spend hundreds of millions of dollars buying and installing it. So many (mostly male) engineers were sent across that their wives back home in the US called themselves “Apple widows”. The massive bonuses and extra days off they received were known as the DAP, or “divorce avoidance programme”.

This training strategy – effectively “an Ivy League university for hardware” – proved wildly successful for Apple. Between 2003 and 2012, its global profits soared from $69m to $41.7bn, “a rise of more than 60,000%”. But it was also a massive boon for China. Apple estimates that by 2015 it was contributing $55bn a year to the Chinese economy, in terms of salaries, training and equipment. And a rule that Apple could account for no more than 50% of its suppliers’ revenues turbocharged China’s homegrown smartphone industry: the market share of local brands like Huawei and Xiaomi rose from 10% in 2009 to 74% by 2014. For Beijing, this quarter-century transfer of technology and know-how has been manna from heaven. They spent decades trying to catch up with the West in advanced industry. “Here was America’s most famous tech giant willingly playing the role of Prometheus, handing the Chinese the gift of fire.”

Apple in China: The Capture of the World’s Greatest Company is available to buy here.

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