It wasn't until 2001 though that Apple officially arrived in China, through a Shanghai-based trading company, and started making products in the country. It partnered with Foxconn, a Taiwanese electronic manufacturer operating in China, to make iPods, then iMacs and subsequently iPhones. As Beijing began trading with the world - encouraged by the US no less - Apple grew its footprint in what was becoming the world's factory. Back then, China was not primed to make the iPhone. But Apple chose its own crop of suppliers and helped them grow into "manufacturing superstars", according to supply chain expert Lin Xueping. He cites the example of Beijing Jingdiao, now a leading manufacturer of high-speed precision machinery, which is used to make advanced components efficiently. The company, which used to cut acrylic, was not considered a machine tool-maker - but it eventually developed machinery to cut glass and became "the star of Apple's mobile phone surface processing," Mr Lin says. Apple opened its first store in the country in Beijing in 2008, the year the city hosted the Olympics and China's relationship with the West was at an all-time high. This soon snowballed to 50 stores, with customers queuing out of the door. As Apple's profit margins grew, so did its assembly lines in China, with Foxconn operating the world's largest iPhone factory in Zhengzhou, which has since been termed "iPhone City". For a fast-growing China, Apple became a symbol of advanced Western tech - simple yet original and slick. Today, most of Apple's prized iPhones are manufactured by Foxconn. The advanced chips that power them are made in Taiwan, by the world's largest chip manufacturer, TSMC. The manufacturing also requires rare earth elements which are used in audio applications and cameras. Some 150 of Apple's top 187 suppliers in 2024 had factories in China, according to an analysis by Nikkei Asia. "There's no supply chain in the world that's more critical to us than China," Apple's CEO Mr Cook said in an interview last year.