"BEIJING -- Apple Inc.'s Tim Cook took the stage Saturday at an economic conference in Beijing sponsored by the Chinese government, giving an upbeat talk that was welcomed with applause.
The treatment his counterpart at TikTok received days earlier in Washington couldn't have been more different: hours of questioning by lawmakers over the short-video platform's links to Beijing.
Mr. Cook, making his first known visit to China since the pandemic began, spoke for about half an hour in an exchange with a former official of the forum's organizer from a TED Talk-style stage set up in Beijing's historical Diaoyutai State Guesthouse.
"I am thrilled to be back in China," the chief executive told the China Development Forum, hosted by a research center of the State Council. "It means the world to me and I feel really privileged to be here."
Mr. Cook spoke about how Apple and China have grown together over the three decades since the company entered the country -- which it has relied on both as a manufacturing hub as well as a rapidly growing consumer market. "This has been a symbiotic kind of relationship that we have both enjoyed," he said.
He also answered questions about the importance of education from Lu Mai, a former official of the China Development Research Foundation, the forum's organizer. Mr. Cook said Apple is committing 100 million yuan, equivalent to around $14.6 million, to help fund educational projects run by the foundation, a unit affiliated to the State Council's research center.
Like Mr. Cook, TikTok's Shou Zi Chew runs one of the world's most high-profile tech services. TikTok is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance Ltd. That puts it at the center of the growing strategic rivalry between Washington and Beijing, with bilateral relations at their lowest point in decades.
During a House hearing that ran for more than five hours on Thursday, Mr. Chew -- a Singaporean national -- was subject to withering attacks on TikTok as he tried to make his case that the company would earn lawmakers' trust.
In a rare bipartisan display, Democrats and Republicans repeatedly questioned him over similar issues, at times not allowing him to finish sentences. TikTok later said that political grandstanding had dominated the hearing.
Apple didn't immediately respond when asked why it was important that Mr. Cook attended the Chinese-government sponsored conference at a time when U.S.-China tensions are on the rise.
For U.S. business leaders, the risk of potential fallout from being seen hobnobbing in Beijing is high, given how senior American government officials have held off from visiting China. In February, Washington indefinitely postponed a visit to Beijing by Secretary of State Antony Blinken after a suspected Chinese spy balloon drifted over the U.S.
In some of the sessions Saturday, the geopolitical tensions loomed as the elephant in the room. On stage, many multinational executives didn't touch on the implications for businesses of worsening relations between the world's two biggest economies.
Qualcomm Inc. CEO Cristiano Amon focused his talk on the digital transformation and 5G, and their potential to boost businesses and productivity in society as a whole. When asked later by The Wall Street Journal how he felt about visiting China as political ties sour, Mr. Amon responded with a smile and a "thank you" as he walked away." [1]
1. Apple CEO Upbeat at Beijing Confab
Kubota, Yoko. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 27 Mar 2023: B.4.
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