Apple instigated independent inspections of its China factories when the allegations of staff abuse came to light last month
Apple's chief executive is visiting China in an attempt to expand its business and clear up a host of recent problems in the region.
On his first trip to the country since taking over as CEO in August, Tim Cook met with government officials and visited Apple's flagship store in Beijing.
Mr Cook took the helm of the consumer electronics company after the death of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs last year.
A spokeswoman for the maker of iPhones, iPads and iPods said China was a very important market for the firm and it looked forward "to even greater investment and growth there".
But Apple's new chief executive also has some tricky problems to overcome in China, which is both Apple's most important manufacturing hub and biggest potential market.
The firm has been losing ground there to arch rival Samsung Electronics in smartphones and has yet to introduce the latest version of its top-selling iPad to the country.
In the last quarter of 2011, Apple captured three-quarters of China's tablet PC market, while its iPhone ranked fifth in the country's smartphone sector, according to industry figures.
Mr Cook has previously said that Apple has merely scratched the surface in China.
It has only five stores in the country, although it sells its products through more than 100 resellers.
Apple is also waging a legal battle with a Chinese firm over the local rights to the iPad trademark.
The long-running dispute with Proview - a financially weak technology company that claims to have registered the trademark - is making its way through Chinese courts and has threatened to disrupt iPad sales if it is launched.
Apple is also reviewing labour standards at the Chinese firm it uses to assemble its iPhones and iPads, Foxconn Technology Group, which has been accused of running sweatshops.
At the outset of Mr Cook's Beijing visit, an activist group from Hong Kong published an open letter, demanding "that Apple ensure decent working conditions at all its suppliers".
In the letter, Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour listed grievances cited by employees at Apple suppliers, including "poverty wages" and excessive and forced overtime.
The letter said: "They describe their daily routine as work, eat and sleep. They described themselves as machines that repeated the same monotonous motion for thousands (of) times a day.
"With all its success in the global marketplace, Apple undoubtedly has (the) ability to rectify these problems."
Mr Cook described the probes as "unprecedented in the electronics industry, both in scale and scope", adding: "We believe that workers everywhere have the right to a safe and fair work environment."
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