At a very basic level, it’s perilous when the most important company for global equity markets is heavily dependent for growth on the would-be usurper in a clash with the incumbent economic and financial hegemon.

That’s even more true when the company in question is an international symbol of the incumbent’s technological prowess, consumer appeal and commercial success.

Such is the case with Apple and China. Back in March, while attending the China Development Forum, Tim Cook described the relationship as “symbiotic.” “I think we both enjoyed [it],” he said.

Apple might be enjoying it a little less these days, at least in some respects. On one hand, sales in greater China are up, and Apple gets around a fifth of its revenue from the country. On the other hand, the company risks becoming a casualty, a pawn or both in the geopolitical struggle between Beijing and Washington.

This isn’t new, but it’s back in the news, with an “s.” Xi Jinping’s plans to institute a wide-ranging ban on iPhones for employees of state enterprises and government-linked firms grabbed all manner of headlines on Thursday. You can be sure representatives from Apple reached out to Chinese officials. Whether those efforts met with more success than the media’s unanswered faxes to Beijing is impossible to know.

It’s important to note that although China is obviously a key growth engine for Apple, the share of revenue the company derives from the country is actually down meaningfully from the peak in 2015.

I argued on Thursday morning that Xi’s ban on iPhones for government employees and workers at state-run enterprises could presage a wider crackdown as China angles to bolster the fortunes of besieged national champion Huawei, which just released a device powered by an advanced 7-nanometer SMIC processor.

As Bloomberg put it, summarizing a tedious technical discussion, the device “raises questions about the efficacy” of US efforts to block China’s access to the latest technology on national security grounds. China, the same linked article said, has now “demonstrated it can produce at least limited quantities of chips five years behind the cutting-edge.” Clap for Xi. Or he’ll cut off your hands.

Dark jokes aside, this is a big deal. Huawei devices can apparently achieve speeds close to those of Western 5G phones. Washington will probably crack down further on SMIC. Presumably, the company isn’t allowed to supply Huawei with those chips. “It sure looks like” they violated sanctions, Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, remarked.

There are enough caveats to fill a book. For one thing, the new Huawei device sold out pretty much immediately, which suggests the company could only produce five or six of them. I’m kidding about the number, but it seems reasonable to suspect that Huawei is production-constrained on these. In addition, China apparently can’t make much more progress without TSMC and ASML. The paradox of releasing the device is that it alerts US officials to progress that might’ve otherwise gone unnoticed.

For Apple, the question on the sales side is whether Xi intends to go down a darker road that involves walling off China’s consumers to Western brands. One of America’s big five banks on Thursday said that unless Xi extends iPhone restrictions beyond state agencies and government-linked companies, the financial impact for Apple likely won’t be material.

Expanding the ban to Chinese consumers risks a flagrantly ridiculous outcome wherein Xi undercuts demand so much that Apple scales back production at the cost of Chinese jobs. Devil’s bargains are two-sided, and as I put it in the Monthly Letter+, sometimes the arrangements backfire on the Devil.

The bigger-picture concern for US corporates was captured by the Times on Thursday. “If one of the most successful operators in the world’s second-largest economy is at risk, can any Western company thrive there?” Andrew Ross Sorkin’s Dealbook newsletter wondered.

“Apple being among the most pro-China US firms is more than ironic: Who’s next, as China’s share of US imports falls to its lowest level since 2006?” Rabobank’s Michael Every asked. The figure below illustrates the point.

In the same Thursday note, Every echoed the notion that China’s domestic chip achievement probably means more US sanctions — and also “more decoupling and more inflation.”

Unfortunately for investors who’d rather not trouble themselves with geopolitical matters unless and until something literally explodes, this is a case where the discussion is unavoidable. Nvidia aside, ours is still a “so goes Apple, so goes the market” reality.

Similarly, economists accustomed to decades of relative peace and stability (if you don’t count all the wars fought during The Great Moderation) no longer have the luxury of pretending economic concerns everywhere and always trump ideological rifts.

Now who wants to trade their iPhone for a Huawei “Mate 60 Pro”? Show of (invisible) hands.