U.S. Attorney General William Barr on Thursday said U.S. technology companies including Apple have been “all too willing” to collaborate with China’s Communist Party.
Robert Schroeder for MarketWatch:
Speaking at the Gerald Ford Presidential Museum in Grand Rapids, Mich., Barr said that “over the years, corporations such as Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Apple have shown themselves all too willing to collaborate with the CCP.”
Barr listed as an example Apple’s removal of the Quartz news app from its app store in China, following a Chinese government complaint…
Last week, FBI Director Chris Wray said China was trying to “compromise” American companies and institutions doing COVID-19 research.
Barr’s remarks begin at 43:28 in the video below:
MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote last October (Apple CEO Tim Cook’s continued kowtowing to China is a very bad look):
There exists a dichotomy that screams hypocrisy that is impossible to overlook:
Apple CEO Tim Cook, winner of the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights’ 2015 Ripple of Hope Award for “his lifelong commitment to human rights,” who subsequently took a place on the board Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights the following year, and winner of Newseum’s 2017 Free Expression Award in the Free Speech category, no less also aids and abets China’s commitment to violating human rights with serial regularity.
Two phrases immediately spring to mind:
• Do as I say, not as I do.
• Talking the talk, but not walking the walk.
Accepting awards, plaudits, and board positions for “free speech” and “human rights” while banning publications and protest apps are tough actions to reconcile due to their diametrically opposed nature.
For how long can Tim Cook, and by extension, Apple, get away with positioning themselves as the world’s white knight while kowtowing to every whim of the Chinese authoritarian socialist censors?
This is about leadership, or lack thereof.
Obviously, in recent days, this all seems to be coming to a head, but it’s been building for years.
• Apple removes Quartz news app from App Store in China over Hong Kong coverage – October 10, 2019
• Apple kowtows to China by censoring Taiwan flag emoji – October 7, 2019
• Apple Music censors songs in China that reference Tiananmen massacre, democracy – April 9, 2019
• Apple removes VPN apps from China App Store – July 29, 2017
• In bid to improve censorship, China to summon Apple execs to discuss stricter App Store oversight – April 20, 2017
• Apple removes New York Times apps from App Store in China at behest of Chinese government – January 4, 2017
“China is critical for Apple in every way from sales to product assembly, so Apple continues to kowtow to China. With Apple’s strong stance – in other places of the world – on users’ rights and privacy, it’s a bad look for the company and a tough tightrope that Tim Cook — [winner of Newseum’s 2017 Free Expression Award in the Free Speech category, no less] — is trying to walk.” — MacDailyNews, July 29, 2017
Closing quotes:
• “It’s about finding your values, and committing to them. It’s about finding your North Star. It’s about making choices. Some are easy. Some are hard. And some will make you question everything.” — Tim Cook
• “You don’t have to choose between doing good and doing well. It’s a false choice, today more than ever.” — Tim Cook
• “You want to be the pebble in the pond that creates the ripple for change.” — Tim Cook
• “There are times in all of our lives when a reliance on gut or intuition just seems more appropriate — when a particular course of action just feels right. And interestingly I’ve discovered it’s in facing life’s most important decisions that intuition seems the most indispensable to getting it right.” — Tim Cook
• “For some things where we… [have] a strong point of view, we’re not shy. We’ll stand up, speak out – even when our voice shakes.” — Tim Cook
• “The most important thing is, Do you have the courage to admit that you’re wrong? And do you change? The most important thing to me as a CEO is that we keep the courage.” — Tim Cook
Well, Barr’s not wrong.
Nope, he’s not wrong Apple is an ass kisser the biggest one to China.
Why is an American company so willing to toady to China? Because of all their business interests tied to China. Almost 20% of its market comes from China. Its supply chain is based out of China. It’s an American company but it’s exceedingly dependent on China. This isn’t the first time that they’ve caved to China and it likely wouldn’t be the last.
Kowtowgate needs to be called out loudly as the scandal it truly is.
Removing an app that helps protesters avoid problems with the Communist-controlled police is not in the interests of public safety. Removing an app that dares report the truth about what’s going on is not in the interests of public safety. And removing an emoji that denies the truth may soothe the delicate feelings of China. But it does no service to free speech or the truth. – Nick Arama, RedState, October 10, 2019
Why is the world?
Why is you? I yam whaddayam.
Barr’s right, as usual. Apple is obviously all too willing to cooperate with the CCP.
Jinping tells Cook to jump and Cook meekly asks, “How high, master?”
“Barr’s right as usual.” You have got to be kidding. He has politicized the Department of Justice and is a threat to the rule of law. Ordering the tear gassing of peaceful protestors so that Trump could have a photo op was just icing on the cake.
At least he was right about one thing: In his Senate confirmation hearing, Barr stated: “It would be a crime” for a President to pardon someone who promises not to incriminate him”. Then he said ‘Roger Stone’s ‘sentence was fair’ and recommended that Stone’s sentence not be commuted. Of course, Trump went a head and did it any way. And of course, Barr did not complain.
There is at least one thing that both Democrats and Republicans can agree on, and that is the threat that the CPP poses to the world.
Politicized the Justice Department? The Obama administration used top DOJ and FBI officials to officially sponsor a coup to take down the Trump administration, manufacturing false evidence and using the full power of the federal government to push their treason. And you say this crap. You and they are evil and should be prosecuted and jailed.
See… I might have listen to that if he showed his tax returns….
Why? I might listen to you if you said anything with any intelligence. But you don’t. SO you support the party whose platform is 1) burn down the cities, 2) steal whatever you want, 3) get rid of police, 4) kill the police, 5) kill babies, 6) let all prisoners out of jail, 5) destroy the energy industry 7) end education and replace with communist brainwashing 8) put male sex offenders in the Ladies Rooms, 9) destroy sports 10) end the Constitution. 11) Destroy everything that is good.
Damn! So much wrong in one sentence!
A smart dog would have gotten 50% correct.
I would vote for a Republican Orangutan before I would vote for the other orange monkey.
Out of 11 items, the only one that has ever appeared in a Democratic Party platform is #5, to the extent that “allow teenaged rape victims the choice not to be single mothers” can be equated with “kill babies.”
You are a disgrace, applefqqqqqqnic! A loser democrat assskissing disgrace!
and AG Barr knows all about ass kissing as he is the biggest ass kisser of all!!!
No, that would be Joe dementia Biden to Durak Obummer
As usual? Was Mussolini right as usual? Goebbels? You? Lock him up. Sick of the deplorables I keep running into here- makes me physically ill that there are those who support and enable this racist anti-democratic regime.
I come here to fuel my contempt. It’s important.
So, it’s not “a very bad look” for a company to take actions that will result in some, or many, of their employees being sent to jail or re-education camps, and all the remainder being thrown out of work with a blot on their employment record?
Apple can comply with Chinese law or it can abandon its Chinese employees and customers completely. There is no third choice.
Wrong. They can refuse to do such immoral crap you idiot. There are other places to manufacture. I seem to remember Apple making a stand about not doing business in North Carolina when the legislature there enacted a law banning men from using the ladies restrooms. Of course, Tim was all for sexual predators having access to young girls.
My point was not that there are no other places to manufacture but that abandoning Apple’s employees and customers in China by breaking Chinese law would send a bad message to their employees and customers in other countries. Would you work for a company that allowed thousands of its employees to be sent to the Gulag?
To repeat—Apple can leave China or it can comply with local law. It has no third option such as making a grand gesture by defying the Party.
I love it when aholes fight!
So you must really love yourself then.
Wanna take it outside? :-p
You’re the type, loud as a motorbike, but wouldn’t bust a grape in a fruit fight.
I can’t disagree. Even if the rest of the Valley has been far more complicit, Apple hasn’t exactly set themselves apart. I don’y have many nice things to say about Tim Cook.
Apple is moving its manufacturing base out of China, in part to future-proof the supply chain, but also to minimize its exposure to extortion like we are seeing in China.
Witness TSMC manufacturing in Phoenix and Foxconn in India.
And so they should, but moving billions of dollars in assets is hard to do overnight.
Little Lord Grifter and his sons Tweedledum and Tweedledee will be gone by the November….
Please call me after Trump’e re-election. I would LOVE to hear you cry!!!!!!!!!
Americans are tired of the libturd lies, threats, stupidity and violence. I like it though and it proves what scum animals they really are. Best of all it guarantees Trump 2020!!!!!!
November is going to be so sweet when Trump loses. He won’t just lose he will be decimated. All signs point to a historical defeat for Trump. I’ll be back on MDN after Trump loses to see what y’all will say then. Probably lots of excuses, crying, buh buh buh, rigged election, phony voting, more excuses, more crying. You Trumpets are going to lose your minds.
It’ll be salt for you, sad dumocrat loser
You mean the Clinton? Or the Obama’s? Both major league grifters who never did an honest days work in their lives. But they love to grift. And Clinton likes screwing children. Hillary will kill the kids if they threaten to talk. Good couple.
Yes, Biden will finally be moved into an aged care home, probably COVID infected
What is the real reason for U.S. enmity toward China?? Its very simple!
20 Largest World Banks in 2020 by Assets.
https://fxssi.com/top-20-largest-world-banks-in-current-year
1 Industrial & Commercial Bank of China
2 China Construction Bank Corporation
3. Agricultural Bank of China
4 Bank of China ltd…
5 JPMorgan Chase
.
How so? Since when did bank size have to do with anything? Assets are loans. The more loans a bank hands out, the bigger their assets. Since Chinese banks are quasi government banks, it’s no different than the US Federal Reserve Bank.
Just looking at your list, the top 4 Chinese banks are worth $888B, in total. Companies like Apple are worth $1.6T, almost double. Microsoft and Amazon are also worth $1.5T.
They aren’t worth crap ’till they sell…
Oh, ok…kind of like your house, car, book manuscript, garage sale items?
Kind of like everything then…unless you want to make money by borrowing against them?
As long as the US is under the Trump administration, it is better not to take into account what emanates from it.
It is better to wait for this nightmare to pass.
Tim Cook: “Oh, did I not explain my values are relative? I thought that was all the rage, relativity of morality? What’s good for you is good for you, and me for me? So I’m just running with it. Whatever is going on in China, that’s there thing. Whatever’s going on in the US that’s their thing.”
“I mean, I like and believe in free speech in the USA. It allows me to freely lie about not being a relative moral guy. It allows me to say I have a north start, implying my values don’t shift or change and that I’ve got great character. And then I can go on doing massive business bending over backwards for a hard-line Communist regime, which is more hard line than ever before. Destroying Christian churches, taking and killing their Pastors. Taking over Hong Kong. Building out control of the south China see. And watching US tech companies like ours enrich and help them. It’s all good to our bottom line.”
“Wait, did I say that out loud?…” Tim Cook
I don’t like President Trump. I don’t like his tweets, etc… but to be intellectually honest, he’s been nails on China. He and his cabinet understand the existential threat they are. I’ve been their multiple times for business – never want to go back. He continues to put the screws on them.
Any guy that throws out policy to pull our companies out of there and provide incentives for them to come back to the states, I’ll give them a serious look for my vote. Even if that means pulling the leaver for Trump despite not liking him personally. Joe can’t remember where he is, he is senile, and his China dealings make his Ukraine stunts look like childs play…. Hmmm…
NOTE: This is why PRIMARY’s are so important!!! We are left with bad options in the general!