this is a very interesting comment here because it exposes how different the chinese and american polities really are.
america is not a unified bloc, internally. nor does it aspire to be. the differences between a city in massachusetts and a city in louisiana are greater than the differences between a city in massachusetts and a city in ontario -- and ontario's in a different country altogether. in other words, social and cultural distance between two regions in the US can be significantly higher than the cultural distance from one region in the US to another country. i do not think the same principle applies to china. for china, its neighbors are decidedly alien, so the cultural distance between regions within china seems very small in comparison, even if in reality it is substantial.
to return to the OP's example: if alabama tried to secede, i'd be fine with letting them go. heck, i'd be glad they even tried to leave, because it would make a credible threat to the federal government that other states would follow along and also secede if things didn't improve promptly.
i wouldn't wish them success though, because knowing that it's alabama, i would assume that their reasons for secession were incompatible with my vision for the country. in other words, if a state liek alabama really tried to secede, my position would be that they probably weren't going to be compatible with the best iteration of america anyway -- perhaps because they'd come off as a neo-confederate or something similarly regrettable.
but in principle, i don't think i would support efforts to stop them leaving or claiming more rights. i'd prefer apple to not handicap them to appease the federal government, even if i don't like the alabamans or their values very much. why?
because i understand that a restriction targeting them today will be used against me tomorrow. and i resent the idea that a private company can dictate what my hardware runs, especially retroactively.