The news is coming out two months after the fact; that’s when Foxconn began sending hundreds of Chinese engineers working in India back to China (Bloomberg, July 2, 2025).
Bloomberg says that it’s “not immediately clear” why Foxconn sent the iPhone experts back home.
It is clear enough. Foxconn may not have announced why it’s pulling the valued employees from India. But it has no business reason to hamper manufacture of the products of its top customer, Apple.
Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook has lauded the skill and expertise of Chinese assembly workers, highlighting it as the key reason—not just more favorable cost—for setting up the majority of Apple’s production in the country. Their removal from India will slow down the training of local workforce as well as the transfer of manufacturing technology from China, likely raising production costs, the people [with knowledge of the matter] said.
The extraction won’t impact the quality of production in India, but it’s likely to affect efficiency on the assembly line, according to one of the people.
The Chinese government knows that Apple is expanding in India, has been trying to shift at least some of its iPhone production away from China, and is being pushed by the high tariffs on China by the exhortations of President Trump to get out of China altogether.
China wants to make it harder. Bloomberg’s own report says that earlier in 2025, the Chinese government began telling regulators and local officials “to curb technology transfers and equipment exports to India and Southeast Asia in what is a potential attempt to prevent companies from shifting manufacturing elsewhere.” Only the need to appease the Chinese government can plausibly explain Foxconn’s willingness to shoot itself in the foot.
