The US government wants to punish China, but two leading American businesses- Apple and Telsa don’t seem to care for the American administration’s endless conflicts with China. Engrossed in their manufacturing and market interests located in the Communist country, Apple and Tesla are rallying behind Beijing. But it seems that the CCP doesn’t care for the goodwill being shown by Apple and Tesla.
As per latest reports, for example, Xpeng Motors, a Chinese Electric Vehicle (EV) maker, touted as China’s challenger to Tesla is being generously funded by the Chinese state. Xpeng Motors will get $586 million from a Chinese state-owned investment company- Guangzhou GET Investment Holdings Co. Ltd, a subsidiary owned by the Guangzhou Economic and Technological Development Zone. This is a part of China’s attempts to spoil Tesla’s business even though Tesla CEO, Elon Musk keeps praising China.
China’s unfair business subsidies to Xpeng Motors goes on to show how Beijing doesn’t want to provide a friendly business environment to even those foreign firms who are ready to abide by CCP’s arbitrary instructions. In fact, China has always been like that, as even Apple hasn’t been able to escape China’s arbitrary regime despite years of loyalty.
Recently, when the US President Donald Trump decided to kick WeChat out of the US due to the security risks involved, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian tweeted, “If WeChat is banned, then there will be no reason why Chinese shall keep iPhone and Apple products.”
Lijian’s comments really came as a bolt from the blue given how Apple has always submitted to CCP’s demands from banning 47,000 apps on the Chinese App Store to removing the HKMapLive app which was used by Hong Kong protester organisers to track police activity.
The way China has weaponised Apple, amidst the ongoing US-China trade war is telling. Apple has significant interests in the Communist country, including an all-important supply chain and a huge market. In fact, Apple is a rare American tech behemoth that wasn’t kept at bay by China, while others like Google and Facebook had to face outright bans. But now China is ready to use Apple’s business interests in China as a sword against the US.
The case of Elon Musk’s Tesla is even more shocking. Tesla isn’t like Apple, for Elon Musk’s Sinophilia is out in the open. In the case of Apple, we have to dig out the matter but in Tesla’s case, Elon Musk unabashedly exhibits his China bias.
Recently, for instance, Musk said, “China rocks in my opinion. The energy in China is great. People there – there’s like a lot of smart, hard working people. And they’re really — they’re not entitled, they’re not complacent, whereas I see in the United States increasingly much more complacency and entitlement especially in places like the Bay Area, and L.A. and New York.”
Such open praise for China came from Musk a year after the Chinese government officials helped Tesla secure loans worth $1.6 billion to construct and begin manufacturing vehicles at the EV maker’s Shanghai factory. Therefore, Elon Musk had every reason to feel that ‘China rocks’.
But even after Musk showered praise on China and virtually slandered the US, Beijing didn’t hesitate in back-stabbing Tesla. Tesla recently released Model 3- the most affordable car ever produced by the EV-maker priced at $25,000. Model 3 was manufactured at Tesla’s Shanghai factory.
However, China has already started searching alternatives and Xpeng for example is being already financed by Chinese state-owned companies.
In fact, Chinese EV startups remain quite confident even in face of Tesla’s $25,000 car. They do understand how the Chinese state model works to their advantage by blurring the line between private Chinese enterprises and the Chinese government.
The Chinese state-owned companies extend generous funding to private Chinese firms that tend to give these so-called private firms an unbeatable advantage over foreign competitors. This is how mobile and telecom majors also like Huawei came into being. And now, China is going to repeat the same strategy in the EV sector too. And China doesn’t mind even if it comes at the expense of Tesla.
The Apple and Tesla episodes are a lesson for corporate giants across the world. Never think China is a friend because the CCP never befriends anyone and backstabs even those who appease China.