At the top of the month we reported that Apple's CEO Tim Cook viewed China in a positive light during Apple's Q2 2016 financial conference call which contradicted the gloomy view cast by investor Carl Icahn. It was then reported by Reuters that Cook was going to China to meet with China's government and officials in charge of propaganda to further discuss the reopening iTunes after a government crackdown on Apple's service. This weekend Apple's CEO was in China and spent time with the President of the hail-riding service Didi Chuxing, Liu Qing noted in our cover graphic. It was made public on Friday that Apple had invested $1 billion in the service that is likely to promote Apple Pay in over 400 Chinese cities. Didi Chuxing rings up 11 million rides a day which would be a great vehicle for Apple Pay.

China Daily reported today that "When asked about why Apple invested in Didi, Cook said on Monday 'because Didi has a very great management team and its objective is also environmental, hoping to help reduce pollution by making more efficient use of cars.'

Cook's carefully crafted statement further fuels speculation of the direction that Project Titan is likely taking with an electric vehicle.

Cook was in Beijing for an app store developer activity where Didi Chuxing's president Liu helped moderate the panel discussion.

"The thing I like to do most in China is to spend time with entrepreneurs. There are so many entrepreneurs that are driving the next wave of innovations," he added.

To help local developers go global, Cook said they are already technically strong and Apple will make more efforts to help them on the marketing side." Apple's CEO made no comment on whether he was in China to also meet with Chinese officials. 

CNBC reported on Cook's visit as well this morning by noting that "After the seminar, Cook posted two photos of himself and Liu on his official Weibo account and said, 'Enjoyed sharing a taxi ride this morning to the Apple Store Wangfujing. Thanks, Jean Liu and Didi Chuxing!'

And in a formal statement, Liu recalled Didi Chuxing's development - the service was created from the merger of two ride-hailing apps, Didi and Kuaidi, before rebranding itself in April as Didi Chuxing, which means 'honk, honk, commute' in Chinese - since first appearing in Apple's App Store in 2012.

'Now we are serving over 300 million users with eight product lines. Every day over 11 million rides are completed on our platform' Liu said.

'Meanwhile, our collaboration with Apple enters into a new stage. There are many similar stories like ours. Apple and the App Store are not only the role model of the entire tech world, they are also the grass root platform for aspiring innovators. This is where dreams take off.'"

According to a new Reuters report, Tim Cook will be visiting India on Tuesday to meet with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

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