Apple, Caught Between U.S. and China, Pledges Investment in Both

Apple’s chief executive, Tim Cook, has been making similar promises on both sides of the Pacific.

In meetings with officials in Beijing this week, Mr. Cook vowed to boost Apple’s investment in China, long the company’s most important market after the United States and the place where it assembles most of its iPhones.

Weeks earlier, Mr. Cook had met with President Trump at the White House and promised to invest an additional $100 billion in the United States, saying he would bring more of the company’s supply chain and advanced manufacturing to the country.

The electronics giant is one of many companies facing a delicate balancing act as the world’s two largest economies ramp up their contest for control over global tech supply chains. Officials in both countries have claimed broad authority over supplies of chips and minerals, critical inputs for everything from cars to artificial intelligence systems.

China welcomed Apple’s deepening cooperation and increased investment, the commerce minister, Wang Wentao, told Mr. Cook on Thursday, according to state media.

On Tuesday, Apple also announced a new donation to expand environmental education at Tsinghua University, one of China’s top universities, in Beijing. It didn’t disclose the amount of either Chinese investment, and a company representative did not immediately comment.

Mr. Cook also met with video game designers and visited the set of a music video shot on the iPhone 17 Pro. And he picked up one of the world’s most coveted accessories: a custom Labubu doll, made to look like the Apple chief himself, during a meeting with Kasing Lung, the designer of the Chinese toymaker Pop Mart’s popular dolls.

Over the past two years, Apple has been fighting to keep a spot among China’s five best-selling phone makers as shoppers have turned to domestic brands like Huawei, Vivo and Oppo.

In January, the Chinese government launched a subsidy program for purchases of smartphones in order to boost consumer spending. But such subsidies apply to devices priced below about $840, which makes most of the new iPhone models available in China ineligible.

Despite their high price tags, some Chinese consumers are still interested in the latest iPhones. The iPhone 17 Air, which Mr. Cook promoted during a stop at the Apple store in Beijing’s Wangfujing shopping district this week, sold out just minutes after presale orders opened in China on Friday.

The majority of the world’s iPhones are still made in China, though Apple has shifted some production to Vietnam, Thailand and India. In China, most are made by the Apple supplier Foxconn in Zhengzhou, where years of government support and perks like roads, power plants and tax breaks have built up a network of factories known in China as “iPhone city.”

Apple’s reliance on manufacturing in China shows no signs of abating. A recent investigation by China Labor Watch, a labor advocacy group, found that as many as 200,000 people worked in Zhengzhou during the busy ramp-up of iPhone 17 production.