A view of the skyline of Beijing's CBD area. Photo: VCG

During his closely watched trip to China, Apple CEO Tim Cook notably did not mince words when talking about the critical role China plays for the US tech giant.

"There's no supply chain in the world that's more critical to us than China," Cook said on Wednesday in Shanghai, where he opened the doors of the firm's largest-ever store on the Chinese mainland. Apple has been expanding and increasing investment in China, and its factories are much more modern, Cook said.

"I love China and the people," Cook said in Beijing on Sunday when asked whether he enjoyed his trip to China. At the China Development Forum (CDF), Cook said that his company's latest product, the Apple Vision Pro, will be launched in the China market by the end of 2024, and the company is continuously increasing research and development investment in the Chinese market.

Apple CEO Tim Cook waves to crowds as he attends the opening ceremony of a new flagship store in Shanghai on March 21, 2024. It is the second-largest Apple flagship store after the one on Fifth Avenue in New York City. Cook also took pictures with customers on site and signed autographs. Photo: Chen Xia/GT

Under normal circumstances, Cook's remarks about China wouldn't make headlines, after all China is indeed a crucial market for Apple. However, these are not normal times, as anti-China rhetoric has run rampant in Washington. As US politicians have mounted a full-fledged campaign to decouple the Chinese and US economies so as to contain China, remarks like those Cook made about China stand out. It points to a trend where even as US politicians are stepping up their crackdown on China, US companies are committed than ever to the China market.

Strong show

This same trend is visible at the CDF, a two-day forum that has drawn more than 110 international guests, including the heads of the World Bank and the IMF, as well as executives of many Fortune 500 companies. Most remarkably, of the more than 80 business executives listed by the CDF, over 30 - or about 40 percent - are from the US. In addition to Cook, many prominent US CEOs, including Cristiano Amon of Qualcomm, Darren Woods of ExxonMobil and Rajesh Subramaniam of FedEx, were in attendance.

Notably, the heads of many US chip giants attended the CDF, even though the chip industry has become a top target for the US campaign to contain China's rise. Apart from Qualcomm's Amon, Sanjay Mehrotra of Micron Technology and Lisa Su of Advanced Micro Devices were also on hand.

"If I compare the US participation to last year, it's probably increased two to two-and-a-half times," Stephen Orlins, president of the National Committee on US-China Relations who attended the CDF, told the Global Times.

Wang Yiwei, a professor at the School of International Relations at Renmin University of China who also attended the CDF, said that while there are also many European firms, "it's mainly US businesses that came in large numbers."

Such a strong show at the CDF put on vivid display of the US businesses' unabating commitment to the Chinea market, and many US CEOs made that explicitly clear.

This photo taken on March 24, 2024 shows the opening ceremony of the China Development Forum 2024 in Beijing, capital of China. The China Development Forum 2024 is scheduled from March 24 to March 25. The theme of this year's forum is "The Continuous Development of China". Photo: Xinhua/Li Xin

"China is a key part of our global economy at large and we are confident in the country's economic potential in the international trade sphere," Subramaniam, president and CEO of FedEx Corp, told the Global Times on Sunday, noting that after 40 years of operations, China has become home to one of the largest FedEx operations in the world.

Regarding a record high number of US executives at the CDF, Scott Kennedy, senior advisor and Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank, said that China is still the world's factory, and it's also increasingly part of the global innovation ecosystem.

"So multinationals are still trying to find their way through the challenges to operate in China, but they're also coming, not just to say that everything is fine. They're also coming to share their views about some of the challenges they face in China and also because of geostrategic tensions," Kennedy told the Global Times on the sidelines of the forum on Sunday.

Openness vs hostility

Many Western media outlets have been badmouthing China's economy with claims such as "Peak China" when talking about the country's business environment. However, Chinese officials have repeatedly reaffirmed China's commitment to expanding high-level opening-up and improving business environment.

In a keynote speech at the CDF on Sunday, Chinese Premier Li Qiang offered a powerful reassurance for global business leaders about China's economy, saying that China's economy has strong resilience, great potential and vitality. According to Li, an increasingly open China will bring more opportunities for the world.

China has also taken a slew of measures to expand market access for foreign businesses, including those from the US. This year's Government Work Report laid out greater efforts to attract foreign investments, including lifting all market access restrictions in manufacturing and reducing restrictions in telecommunication, healthcare and other services sectors. Last week, China issued a 24-point action plan to attract foreign investment, which also includes many opening-up measures.

In stark contrast, with various pretexts such as national security, the US government has continued to target Chinese companies, impose strict restrictions on trade with China in areas such as chips, and are seeking to bar US companies from investing in some Chinese tech firms.

The difference between China's approach to opening toward businesses and the US government's hostility toward Chinese businesses has been on vivid display.

Before and during the CDF, senior Chinese officials met with US business executives and extended a warm welcome to them to invest in China. There have been no reports of such meetings between Chinese executives and US officials for a long time. In fact, many have also pointed to the scenes of Shou Zi Chew, CEO of TikTok, an app owned by Chinese firm ByteDance, being grilled by US lawmakers as the latest proof of US hostility toward Chinese businesses.

"China welcomes US businesses to invest and operate in the China market, however, the US side, out of panic and hegemonic mentality, seeks to stop China's development," Dong Shaopeng, a senior research fellow at the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China, told the Global Times on Sunday.

Dong said that China's vast market remains attractive for US businesses, which are more pragmatic, while US politicians are seeking to politicize economic and trade issues to stop China's technological rise. "That forms a major contradiction," he said, adding that the US' approach will eventually lose "hearts and minds" and do no good for the US itself.

Some US scholars have also noted the gap between US businesses and US politicians.

"The business community just wants normal, good relations, so do the American people. Our politicians have a kind of twisted mentality. They want confrontation," Jeffrey D. Sachs, director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, told the Global Times.