If the design of the chips is created abd owned by apple, using that same design to manufacture chips for someone else, is theft of design. Apple spend a lot of time and money creating that design.
The amount of time it takes to make anything is not relevant to the question of whether something can be stolen or not. Parent poster is being pedantic, probably for the sake of making an old point about IP piracy, but let's keep things grounded.
This sort of scenario is a clear breach of contract, regardless of laws surrounding IP. Apple seems substantially unable or unwilling to retaliate for breach of contract against their own Chinese manufacturing partners. This is a substantial loss of control that sooner or later will come home to roost - because if this can happen to the richest company on the planet, it likely happens to anybody who manufactures anything in China. Simply put, China is the Far West when it comes to civil disputes; "we" ignore this state of things because the margins are still good enough to go there anyway. It's like running a supermarket in a bad part of town: as long as the profit it makes is higher than losses from vandalism and theft, it will stay open. At some point this might stop being the case.
