Apple to move some iPad production out of China for first time due to CCP’s quixotic ‘zero-COVID’ crusade

Apple is moving iPad production out of China for the first time in history and the Chinese Communist Party’s quixotic “zero-COVID” crusade is to blame.
Apple’s M1-powered iPad Air
Cheng Ting-Fang and Lauly Li for Nikkei Asia:

For the first time ever Apple is moving some iPad production out of China and shifting it to Vietnam after strict COVID lockdowns in and around Shanghai led to months of supply chain disruptions, Nikkei Asia has learned.
The U.S. company has also asked multiple component suppliers to build up their inventories to guard against future shortages and supply snags, sources said… In particular, Apple is asking suppliers outside of the lockdown-affected areas to help build up a couple of months’ worth of component supplies to ensure supply continuity over the next few months. The requests apply to all of Apple’s product lines — iPhones, iPads, AirPods and MacBooks — sources said.
The local government in Shanghai said it will further open up the city — which is home to 28 million people — by June 1, with a focus on helping businesses get back to normal operations.
“We will cancel all unreasonable restrictions for companies to resume working and production,” a statement by the government statement said. The government also said it will subsidize companies’ expenses for COVID prevention measures.

MacDailyNews Take: Better (at least a decade) late than never!
Apple should have been diversifying production long ago to minimize risk, not to mention China’s human rights abuses, authoritarian censorship, and myriad other concerns, including “COVID” lockdowns whose real reason for existence is to remind China’s subjugated citizenry who’s boss.
• There’s no such thing as zero-COVID, but this year is the Chinese Communist Party’s 20th party congress, so the farce will continue until the politics no longer dictate tilting at windmills. Then COVID will be allowed to wash through China, as it already has around much of the world. – MacDailyNews, May 9, 2022
• In general, human-transmissible coronaviruses do not disappear. There is no such thing as zero-COVID. Duh.
COVID-19 is here to stay. It will very likely become endemic, yet pose less danger over time. People will acquire immunity via vaccines (effectiveness TDB) and naturally as they contract and recover from variants like omicron since the partially-effective vaccines permit not only transmissibility, but also breakthrough infections. Influenza and the four human coronaviruses that cause common colds (OC43, 229E, NL63 and HKU1) are, of course, also endemic, but a combination of annual flu vaccines and acquired immunity means that sane societies tolerate the unavoidable seasonal deaths and illnesses they bring without requiring lockdowns, masks, social distancing, indefinite return-to-work delays, etc.
At which point, if ever, will some people decide that wasting away their short lives in abject fear of a bad flu, very likely engineered by China and partially funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, is a hysterical self-defeating overreaction? – MacDailyNews, December 16, 2021
• The real virus is the panic. – MacDailyNews, March 9, 2020
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The post Apple to move some iPad production out of China for first time due to CCP’s quixotic ‘zero-COVID’ crusade appeared first on MacDailyNews.