Apple and multiple other U.S. companies have or are in the process of severing ties with Russia amid its invasion of Ukraine, but the same companies have had little or nothing to say about China’s posturing against Taiwan or its years-long persecution of Uyghurs.
Jessica Chasmar for FOXBusiness:
Apple on Tuesday announced it has halted sales and other services like Apple Pay in Russia, saying it was “deeply concerned about the Russian invasion of Ukraine” and stands with “all of the people who are suffering as a result of the violence.”
Apple has not made similar moves against China, which has been increasing its presence near Taiwan, an island that the communist country claims is part of its own territory despite the island’s claims of independence since 1949. The U.S. does not formally recognize Taiwan but maintains an unofficial relationship and is supportive of its democratic government.
Apple has also been silent about China’s human rights abuses against Muslims, particularly Uyghurs, in Xinjiang, which the U.S. has declared a genocide. In fact, the company removed a Quran app from its App Store in October following demands from the Chinese government. In March of last year, Apple complied with the Chinese government’s demands to remove H&M stores from Apple Maps in the country, after the Swedish-based retailer spoke out against the Chinese Communist Party’s human rights abuses.
Apple did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment regarding the genocide of Uyghurs or whether it will take similar action against China that it did with Russia in the event of an invasion of Taiwan.
MacDailyNews Take: Of course, these sort of questions are inevitable. The fact that stopping sales in Russia amounts to a rounding error while doing so in China would be cataclysmic to Apple’s bottom line (also because Apple’s major assemblers and many suppliers are also in China, negatively affecting business worldwide) leads to accusations that when real money is involved, Apple is compliantly mum.
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[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers too numerous to mention individually for the heads up.]