China's Swagger After India's iPhone 18 Leak

The Chinese iPhone repair specialist Ma Shouhua posted this viral video outlining the specifications of Apple's soon to be released iPhone 13 Pro models.

The purported details were leaked after a cyber attack on an Indian supplier called Tata Electronics.

Something like this would never happen in China, he says. The leak was propaganda gold for a

he says. The leak was propaganda gold for a Chinese leadership desperate to keep American companies locked into China's supply chains.

The Communist Party's Global Times newspaper warned of systemic weaknesses in Made in India, and argued that replicating supply chains in other countries is no easy task, not only for the iPhone, China is in competition with lower cost countries to keep all kinds of supply chains here and the jobs, as well as leverage over its trading partners.

But with geopolitical tensions rising, dependance on China has become riskier.

So Apple and other companies have made greater efforts to diversify. For the first time,

diversify. For the first time, Apple last year produced its top devices, the iPhone 17 Series in India.

Apple declined to comment on the leak and its supply chain plans, and the leak might not be serious enough to change Apple's course.

This electronics market, called fortune Bay, is known in China as the place where old iPhones are bought and sold. Here, technicians are famous for their ability to refurbish, repair and rebuild devices.

People told us recreating an iPhone 13 Pro is almost impossible. They can't get the parts,

impossible. They can't get the parts, the chips or the software.

You can't really make anything from those drawings. At most you can make phone cases,

drawings. At most you can make phone cases, the seller says. They might look like an iPhone, but the insides are different, says this other. What we did find is this not so convincing. $29 copycat.

convincing. $29 copycat.

It's marketed as the 17 Pro Mini or baby iPhone, which Apple doesn't make.