“The usual suspects came out in force yesterday to misreport claims that the Chinese government had banned use of Apple products due to security concerns. Which is why iPads and MacBooks aren’t listed, but security isn’t the concern,” Johnny Evans writes for Computerworld.
“The situation apparently reflects nothing more than an administrative problem created when Apple was late delivering documents about energy saving. It had to do so to get its products included on China’s approved product list but Apple failed to manage this in time, and that’s why its systems aren’t listed,” Evans writes. “‘Fang Honggang, vice president at Detecon International GmbH (China), told Caixin that speculation that national security reasons caused the Chinese government to reject Apple products is unreliable. The Chinese government uses foreign brands, with companies such as Dell still on the list,’ according to China.org.”
“China has been highly suspicious of US technology firms since Edward Snowden revealed that the US spies on almost everybody on the planet. Google and Facebook have been slammed by Chinese media for working with US spying agencies, while both Kaspersky and Symantec were skipped off the latest Chinese government approved equipment list. Windows 8 is now banned from Chinese government PCs,” Evans writes. “It may be true that Apple’s solutions are not included on the latest list simply because of an administrative error — but the situation for US tech firms in China has certainly become more difficult as a result of US surveillance activities.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: As said early yesterday, as one of the first and only outlets to correctly report this story, the reports for Apple products being banned by the Chinese government are nothing more than echo chamber-amplified FUD.
Related article:
No, China has not ‘banned Apple products from government purchases’ – August 6, 2014