I don’t ever want to hear again how Apple is some champion of privacy and ethics. I’ve lost count of how many scandals have come out of their relationship with China from the suicide nets to the repeated investigations showing their supply chain was riddled with slave labor that they would later campaign against protections that would prevent it. Now this. They are fucked as a company, I can’t get out of their ecosys…
On one hand, yes, it's not ideal. On the other hand it's still probably a better alternative to a Chinese phone that spies on you. What is the alternative? If they take a stance, they will be banned from China completely. You need to pick your battles instead of being idealist. Look at Russia. There was an opposition back in the day, but they couldn't agree between each other because of smaller differences. And now w…
In the case of western companies operating in China it's even worse because this becomes a soft power the CCP can influence on the west creating a form of self-censorship or even capture (see Ray Dalio).
A lot of companies have told themselves that their presence will be a positive influence on problematic policy of a country they want to enter, but what ends up happening is that the policy is a corrupting influence on the principles of the company.