> I wonder would China ban Apple if they refused to do this?

Yes.

> Why is Apple submitting to all the demands of the Chinese government?

China is Apple's second or first largest market, depending on the quarter.

> Yes.

I am not sure how you can know that. I am actually sure Apple would have lost some market but not much and there could have been stuff they could do to let it happen rather than now just giving up everything to any authoritarian government.

Maybe Apple could have gained some respect and then market share if they would have stood firm. With this new management, Apple has become just focused on business (income) not what they were known to be passionate about.

China was happy to ban Facebook and Google. Google's market share in China plummeted from 37% to 2% over 4 years, and is still falling there.

The evidence certainly seems to suggest that China's government is willing to ban foreign tech companies for the benefit of the ruling party. Is there any evidence the Chinese government would hesitate to ban Apple if Apple undermined their authority?

I think there's a moral case for Apple refusing to serve China, but I think they would have to face the likely consequence that China would simply kick them out of the country.

We know that because China has banned western tech companies in the past when they don’t play ball.

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/042915/why-f...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_China

Also twitter and Snapchat.

As I understand it, Google actually had been cooperating with China's censorship requests, but didn't like it, and Google made the decision themselves[1] to relocate offices [ED: web search was moved but Google maintains offices in mainland China] to Hong Kong rather than continue self-censorship.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2010/mar/23/google-ch...

Google didn't "relocate" to Hong Kong, their offices in Wudaokou kept running, they just shutdown their Mainland-based webserver.

And redirected it to Hong Kong, which was then blocked, because they weren’t playing ball anymore.

Yes, but google still has other business in china (android, selling ads to Chinese customers). They sacrificed their web search business, but not everything else.

I'm pretty sure nothing Google-related works in China. Youtube/search/gmail etc. are all blocked.

They have Android phones but no Google services on them. They do sell ads there but to companies targeting Chinese people outside of China.

They just recently opened a new office in Shenzhen, so something is going on, but I mostly agree.

There are a few services that work. Google Translate is available, and you can connect to gmail using an email client instead of the website.

I apologize for my misleading statements. From my amateur reading of the coverage at the time, I had no idea of this; I appreciate the additional information.

China banned their citizens from accessing a network.

That's very different than banning a famous, physical product.

> Maybe Apple could have gained some respect and then market share if they would have stood firm.

The Chinese government doesn't play that respect game. Apple's stock holders also would never allow Apple to exit China without a huge hit (~50%) in their valuation. It isn't hard to see that Apple is stuck in China whether they are passionate about it or not.

We don't know whether APPL shareholders would be interested in Apple exiting Mainland China. Apple needs to act in the shareholders' interest, but I don't think it necessarily has to act to maximize profits. Also, Apple could have a shareholder vote on the matter; perhaps the majority of shareholders prefer that Apple maintain its reputation for privacy over its profits. Perhaps exiting Mainland China would not affect Apple's profits much--given that I couldn't walk into the Beijing Apple Store without being accosted by sellers of presumably illegally imported iPhones from Hong Kong to avoid the 25% luxury tax, perhaps Apple's China profits would simply morph into Apple's HK or Singapore profits. Perhaps Apple leaving China would make them that much more desirable--the ultimate luxury item is the one you can't get.

The pricing between HK and Beijing is much reduced these days, definitely a lot more than it was when the first Apple stores opened (you can compare prices between apple.com/cn and apple.com/hk if you don't believe me). The days of the yellow cows are mostly over, and have been on decline for a few years now (they no longer hang out at the Sanlitun Apple store as of 2016, for example).

I don't think ANY company can afford to leave China these days. Google only got away with it because they weren't making much on search in China.

3rd largest. It was second largest for a brief period in 2015, and it has never been the 'first largest' (sic).

> Why is Apple submitting to all the demands of the Chinese government?

Money, and continued market dominance.

For money and to keep some other player from that money. I don’t think this is a particularly difficult thing to understand, you just need nuclear-grade powers of rationalization and greed.

But how would not selling iPhones in China, on principle, help anyone?

The perfect world where Apple tells China what to do doesn't exist. Ok. We know that.

Now what? Bail? Why? Stick around and play by the rules and play the game and maybe someday make 1% positive difference? Seems like the lesser of two evils to me.

I recognize that rape, robbery, assault and murder are sadly inevitable parts of human life, but I refuse to participate in, aid, or abett it. The inevitability of wrong-doing is not license to be a doer.

So it’s not the lesser of two evils, it’s just participation in evil for profit.

Do you pay taxes to a country that has a violent military presence in the Middle East (or any other conflict area)? Or to a local police department that has any history of unnecessary force to police non-violent crimes?

Most of us do. We don't have much of a choice. We could choose to earn so little that we don't have to pay much or anything in taxes or move elsewhere but, well, we want to live better that or live in a specific area.

This isn’t even good whataboutism, it’s downright lazy. Apple is a giant corporation that avoids taxes, not a citizen with few or no choices. This is a business maximizing profit, by choice, in another market.

Just because someone is going to get screwed either way, doesn't mean it's OK to be the one screwing them. Apple claims that they care about the privacy of their users, but this demonstrates that they don't care at all.

No it doesn't. It demonstrates that Apple respects the laws of the country it operates in. Apple has no moral responsibility to force its privacy views on other countries, and it has no power to do so anyway.

Furthermore, Apple has a responsibility to respect the choices of other people. If China had a democratically elected government that choose to intercept all communication crossing its borders, I think Apple would have a moral obligation to either respect that or not do business there. The present government is in power partly because the previous government was so bad that the peasants preferred the Communists, so you could even argue that the present government is there by the will of the people, in some limited sense. We can't just force other people to have our standard.

Yes, it does. Apple has the option to not do business there. They can simply walk away. And by walking away, they are allowing other people to hold onto their own beliefs, while not encouraging them.

> Furthermore, Apple has a responsibility to respect the choices of other people. If China had a democratically elected government that choose to intercept all communication crossing its borders, I think Apple would have a moral obligation to either respect that or not do business there. The present government is in power partly because the previous government was so bad that the peasants preferred the Communists, so you could even argue that the present government is there by the will of the people, in some limited sense. We can't just force other people to have our standard.

I don't really disagree with this, but I'm not sure what it has to do with what I posted. Not doing business with a group of people because you disagree with how they want that business done is completely unrelated to "forcing other people to have our standard".

We can’t force anything, but profiting from it is another story which contains a moral dimension regardless of your ideological stance. There is no legal responsibility, but morals are sticky. For what it’s worth though, I appreciate your demonstration of the rationalization I mentioned in my first comment.

They will ban iCloud in China, for sure.