汉娜•毕什在本周的《时代》周刊（Time Magazine）中写道：“苹果公司（Apple）代表了最优秀的美国大公司。它以创新为使命，具有独特的时尚品味和敏锐的宣传视角。”

    此外，苹果的成功还有一个很重要的原因，那就是它与远隔重洋的中国之间有着深刻、复杂的联系。苹果公司的所有配件几乎都在中国组装。最近几个月，关于苹果公司中国供应链侵犯劳动者权益的报告频频见诸报端。苹果公司自身没有工厂，而是将产品组装任务外包，形成了一个巨大的供应商网络。

    不过，供应方面的问题只是苹果公司中国故事的一小部分。其他许多在华的西方科技企业都受困于当地企业的竞争以及中国政府部门的种种通信限制，日子并不好过，但苹果却一派欣欣向荣的气象。但作为一家美国公司，在目前中产阶级规模迅速扩大的中国，苹果品牌已经成为这个国度追求进步的终极精神图腾。

    苹果与中国大陆的关系体现了全球经济最伟大的机会，但也代表了最棘手的难题。一家美国科技巨头必须决定在多大程度上来调整自己、适应这个遥远的国度。苹果是否应该成为西方在“中央王国”最优秀的代表，或者苹果是否必须遵照中国公司不太体面的运营方式？而从中国方面来说，随着政府民族主义倾向日益严重，眼睁睁看着苹果这样的外国公司在自己的国土上大肆捞钱，它还能容忍多久？而夹在中间左右为难的将是13亿中国老百姓，他们在工厂的辛勤工作和对奢侈品的品味将左右全球市场的未来。

    《时代》周刊驻北京办事处负责人毕什条理清晰地讲述了一个复杂的故事。苹果投资者对其中大部分内容都已经熟知，不过她在其中添加了一部分在成都当地的报道，以及我们从未接触过的部分细节——例如，苹果标志不仅出现在山寨苹果商店和假冒iPhone手机上（包括尚未推出的iPhone5），甚至还有约700个打着苹果品牌的燃气灶都贴上了苹果标志。

    译者：刘进龙/汪皓

    "Apple symbolizes the best of American Big Business," writes Hannah Beech in this week's issue of Time Magazine, "its innovative drive, its stylish flair, its advertising acumen."

    The company has also succeeded because of its deep and complex relationship with a country halfway around the world, where nearly all its gadgets are assembled. Labor violations within the tech firm's China supply chain--Apple has no factories of its own and instead contracts assembly out to a vast supplier network--have grabbed headlines in recent months.

    But the supply-side problems are only part of the Apple story. The American company is thriving in China, even as other Western tech firms struggle with local competition and communications restrictions imposed by the authoritarian state. Apple products now serve as the ultimate totem of upward mobility in a country with a fast-growing middle class...

    Apple's relationship with the People's Republic embodies some of the global economy's brightest opportunities but also its thorniest dilemmas. An American tech giant must decide how much to adapt its practices in a faraway land. Should Apple represent the best of the West in the Middle Kingdom, or must it conform to the less salubrious way China Inc. operates? From China's side, how much longer will an increasingly nationalistic government allow foreign companies like Apple to profit so handsomely on its shores? Caught in the middle are 1.3 billion Chinese whose toil in factories and taste for luxury products will dictate the future of the world's marketplace.

    Beech, Time's Beijing bureau chief, does a nice job weaving together the strands of a complex story, much of which will be familiar to Apple (AAPL) investors but to which she adds some on-the-ground-in-Chengdu reporting and a few details we hadn't seen before -- such as the fact that Apple logos have begun to appear not just on fake Apple stores and fake iPhones (including an iPhone 5 that don't yet exist), but also on nearly 700 Apple-branded gas stoves.

    It's the cover story on Time's International editions, available free for subscribers here and for purchase in Apple's iBookstore under a new arrangement between Time Inc. (TWC) and Apple two years in the making. Seehere.

    It's also available in the domestic edition -- but inside the magazine, where it runs behind a cover story about the history of the American Dream written, ironically, by the former editor of Newsweek.