His company also wants to go. Suppliers are doing so due to rising tensions between China and the United States, Apple’s home country. According to Yoshinaga, nine of the top ten suppliers are preparing large-scale relocations behind the scenes. Bloomberg analysts estimate it could take years to move just 10 percent of Apple’s capacity out of China. GoerTek expects this to be much quicker. The company has already invested US$280 million in a new factory in Vietnam. In addition, according to Yoshinaga, expansion into India is being considered. According to him, American tech companies have insisted on finding alternative locations. Vietnam remains an attractive fallback option for Apple for now. The tech group may want to have its iPads and MacBooks manufactured there in addition to the AirPods. Luxshare Precision Industry, another major supplier of Apple wireless earbuds, already has a factory in Vietnam. Apple and China have been linked for decades. The American newspaper The Wall Street Journal reported back in December, based on insiders, that Apple wanted to become more independent of China. This also applies to the production of iPhones, which the company has already rolled out outside of China. Relations between China and America have been strained for some time. In 2021, the US Senate approved massive investments to weaken China’s economic power, especially in the technological sector. President Joe Biden also expanded the list of Chinese companies in which investments may no longer be made.