Apple’s chief operating officer Jeff Williams is in Taiwan as a guest of honor for Foxconn’s 50th anniversary celebrations. He’s reportedly joined by his deputy, Sabih Khan.
The rare visit is likely a compromise, enabling the occasion to be marked while CEO Tim Cook continues his policy of avoiding visits to the island …
Jeff Williams in Taiwan
Bloomberg reports on this visit.
Jeff Williams is on a rare visit to Taiwan to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Foxconn, the company that helped build the iPhone empire by assembling those devices to exacting standards in factories across China.
In Taipei on Tuesday night, Williams was joined by Apple’s senior vice president of operations, Sabih Khan, as a guest of honor at a gala celebration, according to people familiar with the matter.
Williams’ last known visit to Taiwan was some seven years ago, for TSMC’s 30th anniversary event.
Taiwan is a tricky diplomatic matter for Apple. The island, which claims independence from China, is hugely important to the Cupertino company, home to both sole Apple chipmaker TSMC and primary iPhone assembler Foxconn. But since China claims ownership of Taiwan, visits to the island by high-profile figures cause embarrassment to the Chinese government.
This is the reason Tim Cook has avoided visiting Taiwan for well over a decade now, his last known visit being for Foxconn founder Terry Gou’s wedding way back in 2008.
The growing threat of a Chinese invasion
Taiwan’s status has been a quiet source of friction for many decades, but in recent years there have been growing signs that China might do what was once considered unthinkable, and invade.
We raised the risk of this in early 2022, with US and UK security services subsequently agreeing that this was a real possibility. Later the same year, China actually rehearsed what many believe would be a first step in a takeover – a blockcade of the island.
For the first time, the People’s Liberation Army practised operations aimed at a blockade of the island, the likely first step towards an invasion […] The trip likely also resulted in a shift in China’s military calculations, analysts say. “This crisis strengthened the view in China that unification with Taiwan is probably only achievable through coercive means,” said Zhao Tong, a security scholar with Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
A top US Air Force general last year predicted that an invasion would take place in 2025, while the US is distracted by the likely fallout from the 2024 presidential election.
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