China Dream, Apple Nightmare

President Xi Jinping of China is on his inaugural overseas trip. Mr. Xi stopped first in Russia, went to Tanzania, and will then  visit the Republic of Congo and South Africa, where he will also attend a summit meeting of the BRICs nations.

His visit to Russia yielded “breakthrough” oil deals, an agreement to buy 24 Su-35 fighters and four Lada-class submarines, a commitment to strengthen defense ties and a pledge for more cooperation on tourism. The Chinese and Russian leaders apparently got along quite well, as Mr. Xi told President Vladimir Putin that their “souls are open to each other”.

China and Russia have a history of mutual distrust and we should view the happy talk of closer ties with some skepticism, though dismissing it as a “nothingburger of an event” may be a bit too flip. The two countries have many shared interests, including a desire to stymie U.S. influence and, for China at least, counter the U.S. “pivot” to Asia.

Mr. Xi visits Africa with trade between China and the continent worth more than $200 billion a year. In Tanzania on Monday he said China wanted a “relationship of equals,” remarks aimed at countering the growing sentiment that China is exploiting the continent. At the BRICS meeting Mr. Xi may “endorse plans to create a joint foreign exchange reserves pool” that theoretically could help emerging market countries lessen reliance on the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

Peng Liyuan, the president’s wife, has been an unexpected star of the trip. Mrs. Peng, a singer who holds the rank of major general in the People’s Liberation Army  and is known for her patriotic songs, is China’s most glamorous and public first lady in a long time. Pictures of her on the trip lit up Chinese social media and her fashion choices, all Chinese brands, should be both a boon to the designers and a message to other Chinese officials and their spouses that homegrown brands are more appropriate than foreign, luxury ones.

The “Chinese Dream” is a concept that the new leadership has been promoting, both domestically and internationally. The domestic version ties together national rejuvenation, improvement of people’s livelihoods, prosperity, construction of a better society and military strengthening as the common dream of the Chinese people that can be best achieved under one party, Socialist rule.

The official, global version of the Chinese Dream:

will benefit not only the Chinese people, but also people of all countries. The Chinese dream is not a call for revanchism and Chinese nationalism at the expense of its neighbors. It is the dream of China, which once suffered invasions and turmoil, to maintain lasting peace.

Continued economic growth is the sine qua non of the Chinese Dream. A new report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development  forecasts that China’s economy can continue grow at 8 percent a year through 2020 if it enacts many of the reforms that Beijing has already repeatedly said it intends to. At the China Development Forum held in Beijing over the weekend, the vice premier and Politburo standing committee member, Zhang Gaoli, reiterated the government’s resolve in pushing through difficult reforms.

Stable relations with the United States are also important to the realization of the Chinese Dream. Perhaps to underscore that although Mr. Xi’s first, heavily publicized overseas trip is to Russia and Africa, Monday night’s CCTV Evening News broadcast showed Henry Kissinger meeting with Premier Li Keqiang and former Secretary of Defense William Cohen meeting with Mr. Zhang. Premier Li stressed the importance of the U.S.-China relationship and reiterated China’s desire for a “new type of great power relationship” while the vice premier pledged fairness for foreign companies.

APPLE MAY WANT TO TAKE MR. ZHANG UP on his fairness pledge. On March 15 CCTV claimed that Apple’s support policies discriminate against Chinese consumers. Last week Xinhua bemoaned the mindless consumption of Apple products by Wuhan students in “Apple pursuit lures 20,000 students into high-interest loans.” And Monday morning The People’s Daily lambasted the company for both its support policies and its public relations response, even going so far as to mock the response with a cartoon.

As of last quarter China is Apple’s second biggest and fastest-growing market. It is not clear if these official media attacks are part of a broader attack on an American company whose size and success may make Beijing uncomfortable.

In the United States, you would never see a government official using a Huawei device, but a fair number of Chinese ones use Apple products. So far there have not been official media calls for government workers to stop using Apple devices, though the ongoing crackdown on corruption may have dented purchases of iPhones and iPads intended for gifts.

When Apple reports earnings April 23 we should learn if Apple’s Chinese dream is still on track.