“Apple Inc has come under criticism from a Chinese marketplace regulator, which called for stronger supervision of the iPhone-maker’s consumer policies within the country, according to state-run media,” Reuters reports.
“On Thursday, the official China National Radio cited a Thursday notice from the State Administration for Industry and Commerce that urged authorities to protect consumers’ rights in accordance with the law,” Reuters reports. “According to CNR’s website report, the notice mentions Apple but stops short of specifying what exactly they need to go after and how to do so.”
Reuters reports, “Apple’s popularity has helped offset some of the state-run attacks, which has incited strong push-back from many Chinese Internet users for what they see as unfair treatment doled out to the iPhone maker.”
Read more in the full article here.
Related articles:
Popularity buffers Apple Inc. from state-run media attacks – March 28, 2013
Apple and China seem made for each other, so why is China attacking Apple? – March 28, 2013
Manufactured Apple ire shows up for real against China’s state-owned monopolies – March 27, 2013
China slams Apple’s ‘empty and self-praising’ response to warranty complaints – March 26, 2013
What’s really behind China’s attacks on Apple and Android? – March 20, 2013
Chinese media attack on Apple exposed; backfires badly – March 19, 2013
Prominent Weibo users, Samsung spokesman paid to bash Apple – March 17, 2013
China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology: Google controls too much of Chinese smartphone sector – March 5, 2013
Eh, it’s posturing.
Regulator examines situation. -Nothing to do here.
It’s not *just* posturing.
The Chinese government wants Apple to do something that Apple is reluctant to do (and it is very unlikely bribes). This is setting up a threat of massive regulatory oversight that could cripple Apple’s business in China if Apple does not do what the Chinese government wants.
It could be that they want special filters for data put into the iPhones it sells in China.
It could be they want Apple to build a data center in China that the Chinese government has access to all the data there and that all Chinese iCloud users *must* use if they use a cloud service at all.
It could be they want Apple to use Chinese unique RF bands and RF waveforms.
We don’t yet know what China is wanting, but the Chinese government is lining up the pieces for the long game. Hopefully Apple is doing so too.
1
Somebody is actually making some sense on this site. Wow!
Yup.
sounds about right, to me. wouldn’t trust the mainland chinese government any farther than i could throw them. their only interest is for the current elites to remain in power – and they will do whatever they think is required to do so – up to and including the leopard changing its spots, metaphorically speaking.
i am certain it hasn’t gone unnoticed that the chinese government has, in the course of their economic liberalization, simply made the rather sinister, yet fascinating, transformation from communism to fascism. like all totalitarian governments their only interest is remaining in power for their own personal benefit.
for you youngsters out there – there ain’t a dimes worth of difference between the goals and interests of both the extreme left and the extreme right, it is all about control of what one can think of as the “three P’s” : power, plunder and pussy. they want the best of everything for themselves and the devil take the hindmost. – which would be the citizens and their rights, or what few are left to them.
in americas – and americas corporations, including mr. apple – desire to profit from the huge chinese market and low paid workforce we have set ourselves up for manipulation and blackmail. the chinese government does indeed play the long game – and they know our weakness – the very one that vladimir lenin gave voice to when he remarked that in their greed “the western capitalists will sell us the very rope with which which we will hang them” or words pretty close to that effect.
well, it didn’t quite work out that way, at least for him, but the principle remains the same and the chinese don’t figure to muff their opportunity.
sorry if i sound a bit grumpy in my old age, but they mean business and not to our advantage either. watch your step apple, all they need to do is shut you out of their market, after you have made huge investments and there goes all your anticipated growth, and wall street will drive the value of the stock into the ground.
Or it could be bribes from one of phone companies trying round about to get Apple to give them the deal they want. (part of the revenue from iTunes) No way in hell.
Thank you Shadowself and dr. sparemachinery for your well thought out and to the point posts. There is a great lack of comprehension of the “long game” in western society, notably the US which changes presidents a minimum of every 4 years, a maximum of every 8 years.
One of the best examples I have ever heard of the Eastern long game is Japan. I was told that while Japan may have lost World War 2, it was only on the military front. As they perceived that they could not win they simply shifted to the economic front and have done very well.
Since the World War II Japan has moved to the world’s second largest economy in the world during the late 60’s and held that position continuously for more than four decades.
That is the power of the long game and make no doubt China knows how to play the long game as well. Then again, my feeling is so does Apple.
woad worrier you’re so dumb … It hurts my brain!
@Skylark
Actually, Road Warrior has a point, but I fail to see yours. If your head hurts, take some tylenol. Take two. Next time, try it on your own and see if you can make this difficult decision on your own without asking the MDN community for advice.
….or maybe you needs Advil. Decisions, decisions. Anybody else want to chime in and help Skylark? He has a headache.
I was going to recommend that he/she refrain from reading my posts in the future but then I realized that he/she reading my post would hurt his/her brain even more.
Maybe you could recommend that, you seem like a helpful person.
Thanks for the feedback,
Cheers.
Thank you for your post.
Very refreshing and well… I think you hit the point
Excellent theories! Hadn’t thought about some blackmail going on.
Maybe Apple should start taking their extra cash and start building factories outside of China. The Chinese government has the power to shut Apple down overnight. If I were Tim Cook, I’d be worried. He’s got the cash, time to use it.
More bribes from Samsung at work?
Another 5 minute feaver from the gov that will be dropped as soon as they find there are better things to do. Apple fans are already pointing out numerous problems with the local companies.
i think apple should start paying bloggers, judges, governments. Those are the rules. They should play by the rules. I’m pretty tired of this shit.
Apple said NO to bribing Chinese politicians. Samsung probably said YES.
This is just going to make Apple products MORE popular in China, regardless of “supervision.” 🙂
In the USA it is illegal for a business to bribe foreign officials. I wonder if it’s illegal to bribe non-foreign officials?
Yes, it’s illegal to *bribe* non-foreign officials. But after Citizens United it’s perfectly legal to dump undisclosed tons of money into “campaign” accounts.
From the country that manufactures and sells more pirated goods than any other on earth…regulation of an American company? Pffft.
The duplicitous bullshit spewing out of the Chinese government could not be more hilarious. It is a sad verification of the lack of creativity in China, specifically because of its POS government.
That’s right.
Wow, kind of kewl to be on the same side.
At the same time, the Chinese university system is overtaking the US as the prime drivers of research and as the source for a highly educated workforce.
Yes but educated and creative are two very different things.
For some reason, the USA seems to almost have a monopoly on creativity over the rest of the world. Most major innovations seem to come from here. We’ll see how that changes over the coming years as we import more foreign “educated” workers from Asia.
I suspect we will lose our “creative” edge, and I can tell you first hand in the business “programming” world that we already have lost that edge. As you add more foreigners, development is becoming more “by the book” and creativity is being stamped out of existence.
Is it better to have a more educated workforce, or a more maverick and creative workforce? Only time will tell.
I think creative is better, but instead as a whole we are importing and moving down the “educated” path.
In the Corporations that have been outsourcing the most, you are seeing the least amount of innovation. These companies just run on momentum and can’t seem to do anything new because they need somebody to copy, but if you are a Bank or a Brokerage firm who do you copy? They have no Apple, and all they are left with is an “educated”, outsourced, non creative workforce to lead the way. Good luck with that.
Don’t expect innovations in Banking to come any time soon.
Unfortunately, over the past year or more even Apple has begun outsourcing iCloud and Web development to WiPro. We’ll see how that works out for them. So far, initial reports are not that good.
I visited Peking U in Beijing and NAU in Nanjing a couple of years ago. They weren’t just focusing on recapitulation; they were actively going for creative science. You’re right in that at the present the US leads, but if we keep cutting the bottom out of research funding and making it more and more expensive to go to college, that creativity lead will disappear quickly.
Highly educated, highly UN-creative Chinese students. You can’t have actual ‘research and development’ if you don’t have creativity. This specific problem had been plaguing China for many years. The obvious problem is that all loon level socialists systems, especially ‘communism’ (so-called) are excellent at KILLING individual incentive. As a result, you can ‘educate’ someone (including ‘brain washing’) but you can never train anyone to be creative. Creativity is a personally driven incentive. If creativity is not encouraged and rewarded in a culture or social system, it doesn’t happen. Thus: China, the supremely UN-creative criminal nation.
In fact, China is a criminal nation specifically because people create their own avenues of creativity and innovation by way of an underground, illegal system of crime. Uncreative cultures are consistently MORE criminal. This is the case even within the USA. I can point to different suppressed minority cultures within the USA that have, inevitably, turned criminal. This is, in my experience, a reliable aspect of human behavior.
I wish basic human behavior, such as this, was taught in China. Them maybe the masses would rise and overthrough their corrosive government and through off the nightmare of Maoism in favor of a culture that is far more anarchistic as well as positive (as opposed to negative or irresponsible, my usual rant). 😀
There is some bigger fish being fried here than just Apple. Co-ordinated attacks by state-owned interests do not just sprout spontaneously in China.
I suspect these attacks are just a way of hitting out at “American imperialism” – something that has been historically quite common in many parts of the Third World as a device to divert local discontent outwards – by picking on the most popular American institution inside China, which presently happens to be Apple.
It serves so many purposes – for Apple specifically it seems to be a message to not take the Chinese market and its potential for granted, and for America generally, it seems to be a general warning shot to not lean too heavily on Chinese commercial and even political interests when the US has a beef with them.
Basically, some influential Chinese apparatchik decided to make a statement about who’s boss inside that country and cut down to size a foreign company that appears to be running away with local affections.
The Chinese integrity is akin to Hefner declaring he’s still a Virgin, Lohan never got high before, Charlie Sheen only dates Catholic God fearful Virgins, Boy George is straight and Windows is not a ripoff from The Mac!
I’ve got the answer. Apple buys Walmart with all that cash. Then Apple closes Walmart down, immediately putting all Chinese out of work.
It is an obvious attempt by China to divert the attention away from their own atrocious employment record, poor wages, poor working conditions, horrible environmental pollution and restrictions to freedom. Maybe it is time for Apple to move their assembly and other manufacturing to Vietnam, South America, Africa or Eastern Europe. Be careful what you wish for China.
Leave Samsung to China. They have similar ethics and deserve each other.
…or bring it back home, duh.