In a new report, The New York Times reports on their analysis which found that tens of thousands of apps have disappeared from Apple’s App Store in China over the past several years, “more than previously known, including foreign news outlets, gay dating services and encrypted messaging apps.” In Chinese Communist Party-controlled China, Apple has also blocked tools for organizing pro-democracy protests and skirting internet restrictions, as well as apps and information about the Dalai Lama.
Jack Nicas, Raymond Zhong, and Daisuke Wakabayashi for The New York Times:
On the outskirts of [Guiyang, China] in a poor, mountainous province in southwestern China, men in hard hats recently put the finishing touches on a white building a quarter-mile long with few windows and a tall surrounding wall. There was little sign of its purpose, apart from the flags of Apple and China flying out front, side by side.
Inside, Apple was preparing to store the personal data of its Chinese customers on computer servers run by a state-owned Chinese firm.
Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, has said the data is safe. But at the data center in Guiyang, which Apple hoped would be completed by next month, and another in the Inner Mongolia region, Apple has largely ceded control to the Chinese government.
Chinese state employees physically manage the computers. Apple abandoned the encryption technology it used elsewhere after China would not allow it. And the digital keys that unlock information on those computers are stored in the data centers they’re meant to secure.
Internal Apple documents reviewed by The New York Times, interviews with 17 current and former Apple employees and four security experts, and new filings made in a court case in the United States last week provide rare insight into the compromises Mr. Cook has made to do business in China. They offer an extensive inside look — many aspects of which have never been reported before — at how Apple has given in to escalating demands from the Chinese authorities.
Two decades ago, as Apple’s operations chief, Mr. Cook spearheaded the company’s entrance into China, a move that helped make Apple the most valuable company in the world and made him the heir apparent to Steve Jobs. Apple now assembles nearly all of its products and earns a fifth of its revenue in the China region. But just as Mr. Cook figured out how to make China work for Apple, China is making Apple work for the Chinese government.
Mr. Cook often talks about Apple’s commitment to civil liberties and privacy. But to stay on the right side of Chinese regulators, his company has put the data of its Chinese customers at risk and has aided government censorship in the Chinese version of its App Store. After Chinese employees complained, it even dropped the “Designed by Apple in California” slogan from the backs of iPhones…
In its data centers, Apple’s compromises have made it nearly impossible for the company to stop the Chinese government from gaining access to the emails, photos, documents, contacts and locations of millions of Chinese residents, according to the security experts and Apple engineers.
MacDailyNews Take: For better and worse, Apple is wedded to China. It will take many years to even begin to extricate itself from this relationship, at least the the point where the company has some meaningful leverage that the CCP understands.
There’s tons more, much of it damning, in the Times full report – recommended – here.
This situation has been building for years and, for the foreseeable future, will continue to get worse for Apple, not better.
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, 2017China 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 is trying to walk. — MacDailyNews, July 29, 2017
Apple has refuted many of these claims.
Things that Cook heralds and sometimes feels the need to proclaim as important, or as achievements:
1). security & privacy
2). human rights/equality
3). environmental preservation
All three are China’s “strengths” in the opposite direction…profound contradictions to Cook’s paradigm.
1). security & privacy (Systematic awareness and scoring for “good citizenship”)
2). human rights/equality (Ask the Muslims in W. China)
3). environmental preservation (Globe’s biggest coal burner)
Well said and succinct synoptic summation.
No DENYING it Cook or apologist TxUseless that has not spoken out and continues to look the other way…
Lets bring Forstall ya? /S. He would have balanced all Perfectly ! /SS
Absolutely different response, he has a pair…
Most Everything is made in chine.. Why single out Apple?
Because is the kind of double standards that slimes like AppleCutnic have
Because Apple has staked its reputation on securing our data, while sharing that data with China. Therefore, Apple is hypocritical.
That’s not that far from asking, “everyone is doing it, why can’t I?”
This is hardly a shocking revelation. When a national government threatens a company with criminal prosecution unless it complies with local laws, the company either complies or it gets out of the country. Those are the only two choices. There is no “civil disobedience without serious consequences” third option, particularly in a totalitarian country like China. Note: at the time Apple went into China in a big way, the country was moving dramatically towards economic liberty, personal freedom, and even a limited degree of political pluralism. Nobody even inside China predicted the drastic move in the opposite direction since the current dictator Xi Jinping took over in 2012.
This isn’t just a financial issue, but one with real human consequences. If Tim Cook tried to exercise civil disobedience or simply left China cold turkey, it wouldn’t affect him personally, but it might land thousands (or tens of thousands) of Apple employees in prison or reeducation camps. Some of those might be American nationals. Most would be Chinese nationals who could probably not qualify for leaving the country as refugees.
As MDN admits, there is no easy way for Apple to extricate itself. The process is underway, but it will take years. Apple is not a mom-and-pop shoe shop. It is a company that moves a volume of products that requires a labor force pushing a million trained workers, and that cannot be found very many places outside China.
👍
“threatens a company with criminal prosecution unless it complies with local laws”
Cook APOLOGIST coercion is not some benign everyday regular law in a free country by any standards. You continue to misrepresent what is going on because you can’t handle the truth. This is Communist CENSORSHIP and CONTROL of Apple and Cook caves every time. Profits are more important to SJW preacher Cook in China than human rights. Cook Number One HYPOCRITE on planet Earth and you have no problem with it, never called him out, just more of the same tired EXCUSES and looking the other way…
Who would be crazy enough to expect the laws in a totalitarian dictatorship to resemble “benign everyday regular law in a free country?” That doesn’t make it easier to ignore Chinese law. It makes it much more difficult to avoid tragic consequences without strict compliance.
What exactly, specifically, in detail, are you expecting Tim Cook to do? If you think breaking Chinese law—even nasty laws we would not tolerate in a free country—is a real possibility, then explain how it is possible without a resulting disaster for the company and its employees in China..
If your alternative is that Apple cut all ties with China, effective immediately, explain how the company is going to survive for a couple of years (minimum) until it can replace 90% of its product supply, including not only all the devices assembled in China, but also all the components purchased in China. Bear in mind that the 90% cut in revenue would not be accompanied by an equal cut in the company’s payroll, contractual obligations, overhead, and other expenses. Apple has a lot of cash, but it doesn’t have that much.
My guess is that you will not answer this question, because there is no reasonable answer other than to get out of China over a period of years while dancing on eggshells in the meantime. You will reply with a bunch of personal insults and accuse me of being unreasonable for asking the question.
As usual.
No, Communist totalitarian edicts and dictates that can be created and brutally enforced anytime and anywhere ON THE SPOT as dictators see fit.
You make it sound so nice and benign like normal laws at Disney World or in your town. Your continued failure is to cover for Cook’s sorry capitulation and cover up for him over and over with the same throw your hands up in the air EXCUSES.
Same as not moving operations quickly enough out of China, again more EXCUSES covering for your boy wonder and zero criticism like we read everywhere here, MDN’s take, etc. But never from you, just more of the same fanboy brainwashing.
Cook’s greatest achievement is making trillions on the backs of Communist slave labor.
Cook’s greatest failure is making trillions on the backs of Communist slave labor.
HYPOCRITE SJW Cook turns a blind eye to Chinese human rights abuses — same as YOU…
No answer. Misrepresentations. Insults. As expected.
That’s your M.O. — not mine. And because you don’t remember, I’ve gone over this this several times with you too stupid to remember. Never again. You don’t like my answers, tough sh*t broken record…
Though I agree with your post, there’s Apple’s Capitalist censorship right here.
Man oh man! For once I can agree completely with one of TxUser’s post. Very well crafted and spot on! There’s hope for you. 😉
Pelosi Calls for US and World Leaders to Boycott China’s 2022 Olympics
Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), who led the hearing, said corporate sponsors should be called to testify before Congress and be “held to account”.
Big business wants to make lots of money, and it doesn’t seem to matter what cruelty—even genocide— that the host nation commits,” Smith said.
Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) added the Games should be postponed to give the International Olympic Committee time to “relocate to a country whose government is not committing atrocities.”
“If we can postpone an Olympics by a year for a pandemic, we can surely postpone the Olympics for a year for a genocide,” McGovern said, referring to the decision by Japan and the IOC to delay the 2020 Summer Games in Tokyo due to COVID-19.
Last month, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) introduced an amendment to broader legislation to counter China that would implement a U.S. diplomatic boycott.
Biden, a Democrat, has said China is America’s strategic competitor, and has vowed to not let the country surpass the United States as a world leader on his watch.
Britain should boycott the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics because there is “overwhelming” evidence the Chinese regime is committing genocide against the Uyghur minority, the leader of the UK’s Liberal Democrats has said.
We’re talking about forced labour camps. We’re talking about systematic rape and sterilisation of women. We’re talking about the separation of families.”
I don’t really think we can feed into what will be a propaganda exercise for the Chinese authorities when we know what is happening to literally millions of people in western China,” he said.
“We all know China is a huge country, very powerful. But that’s when the test matters. If you can’t stand up to a powerful country, then you’re basically saying they can get away with anything and that is abhorrent.”
Well said and notable quotes:
“We’re talking about forced labor camps. We’re talking about systematic rape and sterilization of women. We’re talking about the separation of families.”
“We all know China is a huge country, very powerful. But that’s when the test matters. If you can’t stand up to a powerful country, then you’re basically saying they can get away with anything and that is abhorrent.”
And Tim Cook is abhorrent turning a total blind eye in the holy name of corporate massive profits.
TxUseless should be here to defend Cook shortly. Another abhorrent individual in the exact mold as Cook, that turns a total blind eye to the worst human rights record and not once acknowledged the abuses in China. Snowflake Leftists are that way and total hypocritical …
Leverage against China needs to come from free nations, not corporations. If Apple can influence China in one direction, Facebook and Halliburton can influence them in the opposite way.
Unfortunately, not only American’s corporations are under China’s influences but also corrupt politicians within America and Europe. Moreover, very soon the whole world is under China controls wether we like it or not.
Exactly. 👍
China doesn’t have a Constitution forbidding any of those things. Why shouldn’t Apple comply with their laws? If the Chinese people don’t like it, then they need to change their government. We expect businesses in America to obey our laws, don’t we?
The Chinese appear to be fine with it. In fact they believe that having such strong government control over their lives makes them superior to America. They like Big Brother.
R2: your post above makes it clear that you are a bloody fool.
Hopefully some day your mentor Joe Biden, come on man, will tell you where to go, what to say, what to wear, and then finally what to think (and you better do that). And he’s trying to do that and has greatly succeeded. I’m fine with that because I will be fighting to the bitter end in my small corner of the world. Because I believe in free will I wont be steal yours.
Tim Cook is a failure and failed at business 101, diversifying your supply/production. He did many things well, and correctly, but this singular reliance on communist china is an unforgivable mistake. A business 101 lack of diversification mistake.
Worse, while he’s trying to address it by moving things to India (good) he’s enabling more hostile communist states (Vietnam), and STILL FAILING to put even a small percent of production into the US. Sure the US might not be able to make a significant percent of iPhones, but even if they can make factories that only supply say 2%, thats really great in diversifying things, and you can GROW that over time.
He’s made an unforgivable sin with the business 101 failure, and compounded it by not learning from it. He really needs to go. Apple needs a chef, not a cook.
Easy to say, but with the massive quantities of their products which they need to have produced with a remarkably short production cycle, hard to do. What other countries have even begun to invest in the kind of production infrastructure that Apple requires?
“Tim Cook is a failure and failed at business 101, diversifying your supply/production.”
Yes, I have been saying the same for years, Cook must go for multiple reasons.
No reason manufacturing cannot match and succeed in free countries example India with a smart populated workforce.
One thought grant Chinese laborers worker Visas and import labor to free societies with incentives provided the Chinese regime does not crack down as citizens flee to freedom and better working conditions.
Yes, the solutions are not easy but when you are the world’s first two trillion company you already have the resources. Certainly can be accomplished by a competent creative CEO with gravitas interested in much more than business profits.
NAFTA signed by Bill Clinton as prophet Ross Perot once said “giant sucking sound” of jobs moving outside of USA and later expansion to the East, most notably China.
Two realities: Hundreds of CEOs out there available to execute a plan to diversify Apple manufacturing, not reliant on the Communist dictator nation. Their current goals planning and building a stronger economy and military than the USA.
Apple and other USA companies should not play a part aiding and abetting the Communists to succeed. China is also ramping up building coal burning plants and now the world’s largest polluter by far and abuser of human rights. How is the Paris Climate Accord working out and the United Nations human rights initiatives? ANSWER: Leftist words without RESULTS wasting billions of dollars.
Leftist human rights and living wage activists, hello, where are you?…
Ok, so your solution to Communist China is that it will collapse as its citizens flee for freedom and better working conditions. All that is necessary for that to happen is for the rest of the world to accept a billion additional political and economic refugees. The way that the world opened its arms to less than 7 million Syrian refugees is a model for that, I suppose.
You suggest that the US can set a good example by granting visas immediately to the million or so Chinese who are currently assembling Apple products. After all, the “one child” policy means that they only have two million family members to admit as dependents. No problem there.
Every American city will join the competition for a chance to assimilate the million or so immigrants associated with each of the three or four new Foxconn plants. The fifty Republican senators will fight to see who can be the most enthusiastic about opening our borders and raising taxes to build the infrastructure to support the new residents. The labor unions will cheer at all the new competition for jobs.
That makes all the sense in the world… to somebody who thinks NAFTA sent jobs to China because it is in North America.
The CCP would not just let their hostage population flee to the USA. The Great Wall of China is locked from within. The Revolution to free China must come from within. The CCP is not the historical/political legacy of Chinese people. The CCP is a Soviet Union Marxist backed government that took China by force. The CCP destroyed over 90% of the Buddhist temples, outlawed the traditional culture and decimated the true history and soul of Chinese people. Ask Tibet how the CCP treats religion and culture. The people of China don’t need to flee to another country they need to have their country set free.
“Ok, so your solution to Communist China is that it will collapse as its citizens flee for freedom and better working conditions.”
Lying extrapolation EXPERT show US ALL where I said just, it doesn’t exist except in your warped Leftist matter called a brain.
“You suggest that the US can set a good example by granting visas immediately to the million or so Chinese who are currently assembling Apple products. After all, the “one child” policy means that they only have two million family members to admit as dependents. No problem there.”
Lying extrapolation EXPERT strikes again.
“The fifty Republican senators will fight to see who can be the most enthusiastic about opening our borders and raising taxes to build the infrastructure to support the new residents. The labor unions will cheer at all the new competition for jobs.’
Total fabricated LIES, your honor, we find the defendant guilty on all counts.
“NAFTA sent jobs to China because it is in North America”
Serial reading comprehension PROBLEM never once said NAFTA was not in the North America or China was part of the deal. Cheap shot smug dig a fact that does not exist. But what do you care, facts don’t exist on Trump Russian collusion or Russia handing the election to him but that does not stop you.
Here is what I posted again for those that can’t read: “NAFTA signed by Bill Clinton as prophet Ross Perot once said “giant sucking sound” of jobs moving outside of USA and later expansion to the East, most notably China.
SPECIFICALLY: “later expansion to the East, most notably China.” Thanks to others and policies years later and Cook one of the first business pioneers to take advantage of China slave labor for obscene profits. Only a dishonest idiot would read into the above and extrapolate what is not there and then LIE about it …
Apple really should start manufacturing their computers in America. Think of all the empty factories in our cities that are going to waste because we all would rather have cheap crap made in China instead of quality products made by our brothers and sistahs! Instead of creating jobs that erase inner city poverty, we would rather have outsiders do our jobs for us. Shameful.
Apollonia; decent idea, but most of the US citizenry don’t have the stomach for the dirtiness of manufacturing. Most like to live as if they aren’t challenging the environment…so, it’s always pleasing to the mind to manufacture in someone else’s backyard.
It’s kind of like people that think hunting is barbaric, but they love a good steak.
yeah…no.
If by most people you mean the loudest who influence the media who influence the Democrat Party well then yes, but that is still not a majority of US Citizenry.
Most of the people I know would love for the jobs and associated business that factories provide.
Hell most of us grew up that way!
Yes, my first job out of college was in clean efficient manufacturing for two years before I landed my first career break…👍🏻
Yes, it would profoundly change the playing field for a city in the so-called Rust Belt like Youngstown, Ohio (pop. 66,000) for Foxconn to open a plant like its biggest in China that employs 400,000 workers (not counting family members). That also does not include new indirect employment required to provide the worker families with goods and services; generally speaking, each 100 new direct jobs in durable manufacturing creates a total of 744.1 indirect jobs (again not counting family members).
I’m sure that Youngstown would have no problem absorbing 3,376,400 new workers and their families. Its road and utility infrastructure could cope with a 5115%+ increase in demand with no problems. Seriously? That one Foxconn facility could increase the population of New York City by 40%. And that is just one plant; Foxconn has several other Apple assembly facilities that are almost as big. The company has more direct employees in China than live in Alaska and Wyoming combined.
Great idea, but the details would be devilish.
Of course you have to take it to the nth degree to fabricate some issue.
My replay was about manufacturing jobs, not taking the most extreme example of a huge factory-city and expect to replicate it in Ohio.
Your attitude is why Democrats never fix anything, just bandage it and keep telling everyone things are getting better till the next election, and when you fail (as Biden is ALREADY doing) blame Republicans.
What a turd…
Yes indeed. Perfect sums up his folly in every post. A reflexive partisan can’t handle other viewpoints other than his Leftist brainwashing. Democrats today never fix anything, take zero responsibly when things go wrong, make excuses and blame everything on Republicans.
I don’t who is more immature, TxUseless or the party. On second thought, one n the same…
TowerTone,
Your comment was that Apple should move its manufacturing from China to the United States. I was pointing out what would be involved in doing that, unless Apple could accept a 90% downsizing. Foxconn has about a million employees concentrated in less than a half-dozen facilities. The plants need to be that size for economies of scale. If we were talking “normal-sized” American factories with, say, 5000 employees, Foxconn would have to build 200 of them and manage a logistical nightmare.
Then, once the factories are built in communities that are willing and able to accept a million primary employees, six or seven million secondary employees, and the families of all those workers, the next step is to find eight million or so Americans with the appropriate skills, training, and experience who are willing to relocate their families to the new job sites.
There are solutions to the China addiction, but going cold turkey and expecting a shift of manufacturing to the United States overnight is not a viable solution.
I’m still waiting for you or GeoB to propose a detailed workable plan for solving the China problem, other than Tim Cook’s plan of getting out as quickly as possible, which will take time to accomplish.
No it wasn’t about moving all of Apple’s factories to America.
I’ve never proposed this.
I’ve said before they should diversify away from China as they are doing ASAP, using other parts of Southeast Asia, North and South America.
You’re in too big of a hurry to argue.
Learn to read and comprehend.
You think you come off as well versed and a deep thinker when in fact you appear to be arrogant and shallow, acting as if no one else but you can understand the depth of subjects so complicated as manufacturing.
What a turd.
More and more factories are using automation and robots. Apple should invest in next gen factories. TSMC makes the majority of the world’s semiconductors and the whole nation is only 23 million people on an island smaller then Florida. The days of dirty factories are coming to an end. Besides China’s energy infrastructure is powered by dirty coal energy and exploited and slave labor. If for no other reason than environmental responsibility Apple needs to exit “dirty manufacturing” as you say. Apple is sitting atop a 38% profit margin; the highest in the world. They can afford to invest in cleaner and less evil means of production. TSMC most expensive factory cost 19 billion. Chump change for Apple.
Fully automated factory is the answer. China uses large populations because robots are expensive and low/slave labor is cheaper. Just as green energy cost more then dirty coal. So the solution is more inline with what TSMC is doing (full automation) and less of what China is doing (cheap labor, dirty energy) but Apple would have to invest money and reduce its obscene profits. Besides “progressive” companies like Apple always talk about the cost of social responsibility. Apple is the wealthiest company in the world through out all of history. It seems like this challenge the perfect opportunity for Tim to show leadership. Maybe it’s time for Apple focus a little more on the well being of the planet and a little less on next quarters P/E ratio. Besides the silver lining is sales would most likely increase as consumers show solidarity for Apple efforts. Remember India will soon have the largest population in the world and India is no friend of China.
And yet another benefit for Apple to take production out of China is to protect its intellectual property. Imagine the lead Apple would have if they didn’t teach the world how to build phones. Remember made in China but designed in California.
The greatest transfer of wealth from the USA to the China is intellectual theft.
Tim Cook and most Apple employees love communism, hate America as founded, hate the Constitution, detest freedom, except for themselves. Tim Cook is a useful idiot for the Chinese. He has hand delivered Apple to his now bosses, the CCP. Tim Cook has made Apple evil.
Actually, It’s pretty bloody simple really, you just don’t have anything to do with a country that practices genocide against it’s own people or others in another country. In the case of China it’s within their own country. Anything else just doesn’t cut it.
Perhaps we need to organise a consumer boycott against ALL companies its that have dealings with China. That’ll sort out the wheat from the chaff and until that happens we have companies that sully their own reputation and that needs to stop as well.
One final point on this site, you often have posters who talk about their Apple shareholdings. How do you guys line up on this issue?
A boycott against all companies that do business with China would not allow much economic activity in countries like the United States and Australia where essentially every company relies to some degree on Chinese raw materials, goods incorporating Chinese components, Chinese intellectual property, Chinese investment, or Chinese markets. I suppose we could grow our own food and warm ourselves by burning all our worthless stock certificates.
The addiction to China in the Western economies needs a cure, obviously, but going cold turkey is not a viable answer.
These are the official IOC international partners to the China awarded Winter Olympics:
Airbnb, Alibaba, Allianz, ATOS, Bridgestone, Dow, GE, Intel, OMEGA, P&G, Samsung, Toyota and Visa.
Your local Olympic site will have local listed “partners”. If you want to do business with them then that’s your choice and in certain cases it’s very difficult to chose alternatives. But where you can make a choice then you should and if successful then the Chinese government may lose face and THAT would be a victory over Chine and a victory for human rights
Actually in Australia we’re in the process of pivoting away from trade with China. Look, a boycott won’t be 100 percent successful. I totally get that. But if we don’t do anything meaningful then nothing changes. It’s just that genocide is many steps past the abuse of human rights and if we do nothing as consumers then we are vicariously a party to that genocide.
Tim Cook is a stooge for evil, genocidal, murderous communists in China. This traitor to the United States needs to be fired now and the direction of Apple switched radically.
The NY Times has nailed his communist-collaborating ass.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/17/technology/apple-china-censorship-data.html
Dang that’s a brutal article. How dose Tim handle getting thrown to the matt by the NYT. Fox News or Epoch times is one thing but NYT calling out Tim Cook is seriously bad.
Yep, great article.
““Apple has become a cog in the censorship machine that presents a government-controlled version of the internet,” said Nicholas Bequelin, Asia director for Amnesty International, the human rights group. “If you look at the behavior of the Chinese government, you don’t see any resistance from Apple — no history of standing up for the principles that Apple claims to be so attached to.” (NYT)
From a 2019 Congressional hearing that seemed outlandish when I first read, but not any more:
“Cybersecurity Threats to Corporate and Personal Data”
United States House of Representatives
November 5, 2019
Klon Kitchen
“Next year, all companies—including foreign-owned companies—must arrange and manage their computer networks so that the Chinese government has access to every bit and byte of data that is stored on, transits over, or in any other way touches Chinese information infrastructure. Put simply: the Chinese government will have lawful and technical access to all digital data within its borders and perhaps to large volumes of data beyond its borders.”
Cook is absolutely in a pickle and b/c his missionary-like proclamations in his own country, re: privacy/security, one has to do mental gymnastics to NOT call him a hypocrite and or, give him the highest rank of a true crony-capitalist.
The scariest part of this whole story (the story has been reported in overseas newspapers, independent of NYT) is that Apple was so easily and willingly sold out personal info (of Chinese citizens including bank account and even facial photos) to central (and local) government by way of having them taking the ownership of servers. So much on Apples stand on personal privacy matters. But it proves that much of sales and component supplies still depend largely on phones and as such, Apple is still a phone company. Cook should lead and pull Apple back to former glory of decency and innovation etc. But Cook is not that type of a guy. Please just do not lie to the most loyal group of customers.
I am a known Cook hater but do not want to keep criticizing him. I do not enjoy it. But I have this urge to speak up of his dark side 🙁
The alternatives were to move the data of Chinese customers inside China to Chinese servers in compliance with Chinese law or to delete the data and drop those customers. Would most Chinese consumers prefer not to have an iPhone at all, as opposed to a compromised one?
Problem with Tim Cook is that he is not at all trustworthy. He flip-flops very easily notwithstanding of his grandiose of SJW standings which includes the China flip-flop (a big one). When it comes to a critical decision to show his/her determination and degree of conviction, s/he easily leans to money and profit rather than principle he has been advocating so much.
I don’t know if Bay Area women exist but they are portrayed to be “soft and weak, cosseted and naive” by someone who published a well-known book. I cannot tell if this portrayal accurately depict the image of “Bay Area women” (or whatever this author likes to describe). But this portrayal certainly reminded me of the image of certain person in Apple. BTW, when Google faced with very similar issue in China, they chose to get out. And it was more than 10 years ago, never looked back thereafter.