Apple wants to use Chinese chips? U.S. congressmen are really "blown up"

[Global Times-Global Web Report] U.S. Republican lawmakers recently warned Apple that if the company purchases memory chips for the new iPhone 14 from a Chinese semiconductor manufacturer, it will face strict congressional scrutiny.

Those who made this stern statement were the "anti-China vanguard", the vice chairman of the US Senate Intelligence Committee, Republican Marco Rubio and the top Republican member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Michael McCall. Earlier, according to South Korean media BusinessKorea, Apple will include China Yangtze Memory Technology Co., Ltd. in its list of NAND flash memory chip suppliers. The Financial Times reported that Rubio and others were shocked.

"Apple is playing with fire," Rubio told the Financial Times. "It is aware of the security risks posed by the Yangtze River storage. If it moves forward, it will be subject to unprecedented scrutiny by the US federal government." Michael McCaw Er also falsely claimed to the newspaper that Apple's doing so would effectively transfer knowledge and technology to YMTC, thereby enhancing its technological capabilities and helping China achieve its national goals.

In response to the U.S. congressman's accusations, Apple said it did not use YMTC chips in any of its products, but said it was "evaluating sourcing NAND chips from YMTC for some iPhones sold in China." Apple said it would not consider using YMTC's chips in phones sold outside of China. All user data stored on the NAND chips the company uses is "fully encrypted."

In fact, BusinessKorea made it clear in previous reports that Apple's consideration of using YMTC's chips is more out of economic considerations. The media quoted industry observers as saying that Apple's intention to cooperate with YMTC is to reduce the price of NAND flash memory through the diversification of suppliers. Most importantly, Apple needs to show a friendly gesture to the Chinese government to boost sales of its products in the Chinese market.

In addition, BusinessKorea said that Apple once again selected China's BOE as one of the display suppliers for the iPhone 14. And Apple did so out of a need to reduce its reliance on Samsung. According to the report, from 2019 to 2021, Apple will pay Samsung Display about 1 trillion won (about 5 billion yuan) in compensation each year because it failed to purchase the contracted amount. BusinessKorea believes that it is unusual for Apple to pay compensation to suppliers. This shows Apple's heavy reliance on Samsung's displays.

Apple has a huge supply chain system in China. According to Forbes, as of 2021, 51 Chinese companies are supplying components to Apple. Mainland China has surpassed Taiwan as Apple's largest supplier. Third-party data shows that more than a decade ago, Chinese suppliers only contributed 3.6% of the value of iPhones; today, the proportion of Chinese suppliers' contribution to the value of iPhones has increased significantly, reaching more than 25%.