BEIJING—Apple Inc.’s AAPL 0.83% Tim Cook took the stage Saturday at an economic conference in Beijing sponsored by the Chinese government, giving an upbeat talk that was welcomed with applause.
The treatment his counterpart at TikTok received days earlier in Washington couldn’t have been more different: hours of questioning by lawmakers over the short-video platform’s links to Beijing.
Mr. Cook, making his first known visit to China since the pandemic began, spoke for about half an hour in an exchange with a former official of the forum’s organizer from a TED Talk-style stage set up in Beijing’s historical Diaoyutai State Guesthouse.
“I am thrilled to be back in China,” the chief executive told the China Development Forum, hosted by a research center of the State Council. “It means the world to me and I feel really privileged to be here.”
Mr. Cook spoke about how Apple and China have grown together over the three decades since the company entered the country—which it has relied on both as a manufacturing hub as well as a rapidly growing consumer market. “This has been a symbiotic kind of relationship that we have both enjoyed,” he said.
He also answered questions about the importance of education from Lu Mai, a former official of the China Development Research Foundation, the forum’s organizer. Mr. Cook said Apple is committing 100 million yuan, equivalent to around $14.6 million, to help fund educational projects run by the foundation, a unit affiliated to the State Council’s research center.
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