“Apple Inc. Chief Executive Tim Cook met Chinese government officials in Beijing on Monday, a company spokeswoman said, as the company moves ahead with an expansion of its operations in China,” Loretta Chao reports for MarketWatch.
“Cook ‘had great meetings with Chinese officials today. China is very important to us and we look forward to even greater investment and growth here,’ said Apple spokeswoman Carolyn Wu,” Chao reports. “She declined to give further details on the meetings.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Enough with this iPad trademark extortion?
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
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Proview lawyer hopes Apple makes contact for iPad trademark settlement – March 1, 2012
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Apple iPad trademark case in Shanghai suspended; Proview injunction rejected – February 24, 2012
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Finally cook figured out that in china there is no separation of executive legislative and judiciary. Just one communist party.
“Savvy!!” as Capt. J. Sparrow would say.
If this meeting was about the ProView litigation, then it’s a political calculation, who is more important to the Chinese gov’t, Apple or the 8 banks, including the Bank of China. Right or wrong, I think the Chinese gov’t would prefer that Apple pay some “compensation” to ProView to make the case go away, as that’s what the Chinese gov’t does. It’s a face-saving move that allows everyone to pretend they won.
As much as I’d like Apple to stick it to ProView on principle, if this does become political, then Apple will lose something in a later battle. The Chinese gov’t often uses foreign companies and gov’ts as a way to draw critical attention from themselves. For example, if the gov’t is coming under pressure for corruption, they might leak a story that they’ve caught some foreign retailer like Carrefour for watering its milk, or relabeling old meat as new. Then, the mob turns its attention from protesting the gov’t into protesting the retailer. If Apple wins this case in foreign jurisdictions, then Apple runs the risk of becoming another company that the gov’t may target in the future.
I don’t see anything about Proview, only a meeting about further business expansion in China by Apple. Any conjecture here is entirely yours, it seems.
It is sad that the Chinese communists are more receptive of Apple than the current U.S. regime.
1
Listen, MacClueless, the Chinese government isn’t buying 18,000 iPads like the US Air Force, or shifted to iPhone like whole federal agencies (NOAA), or adopted Macs for critical cyber security functions. I don’t know what your metric is for “more receptive” but by my simple capitalist ones – purchase and use of the products – the Obama administration is light years ahead of its predecessor.
My same old rant:
China: Criminal Nation.
Apple should be pulling out of that hellhole, not investing in it further. There is no reason to expect China to do anything other than more-of-the-same, IOW screw Apple and the rest of the world.
Hey Apple: Get the HELL out of China already. There are far better, more worthy, honest and reliable countries with whom to do business.
Tim Cook: Please don’t let China be your downfall. Give it up and move along.