I believe you are over-simplifying a very complicated argument, although perhaps HN is not the place for the full argument. When I was young, I lived in nightl

I believe you are over-simplifying a very complicated argument, although perhaps HN is not the place for the full argument. When I was young, I lived in nightly fear of China. I lived on a military base in the 1980s, and read conspiratorialist material my parents had in the house. One of my greatest fears was China's army of hundreds of millions of men. Today I don't fear China. I have a ten-year tourist visa for China and will be heading to Hong Kong next week. I believe the difference is economic engagement. The economic interests of both America and China are too entangled now to imagine a military war between the two countries. So on the one extreme is sanctions a la Iran or North Korea, and on the other extreme is the full unlimited economic engagement we have now. If the choices are that stark, I choose engagement every time. The choice isn't that stark, though. One can still engage but with limits and conditions, right? It seems likely that even if Apple completely withdrew all manufacturing from China, or with even more difficulty and expense, completely withdrew all supply of raw materials, there would still be enough economic engagement between China and other companies to make open hostility unpalatable. But Apple is definitely one of the bigger companies doing business there, and they would have lost any influence there at all. Right now Apple can say they've brought the standard of living for employees of factories which build Apple gear up quite a bit. Not to western standards, obviously, but far, far higher than they were. If Apple leaves, do those changes remain? Or do the standards drop back down to pre-Apple levels, sending people back into poverty and hardship? I don't know, do you? Where would Apple send manufacturing next? They were producing the Mac Pro in the US, which I think is one of the largest reasons that platform has stagnated for years now. Do you have a suggestion of another country that provides the resources Apple needs while also providing a standard of living for every citizen that satisfies you? I mean, does the standard of living for every citizen of the US satisfy you? Anyway, it's a complicated issue, and I'm not arguing that Apple shouldn't continue to do more, but I think disengagement is not the right move here, for Apple, for Chinese citizens, for anyone.