Their stance on privacy could easily be a false front - who would know if they secretly leaked infos to any three letter agency and PRC?

Their stance on censorship is impossible to hide, and should inform your opinion of them more strongly...

It always baffles me when people say companies like Google and Apple can simply “make a stand” on censorship. Make a stand how? Refusing to comply with official decrees and get banned altogether? Seek solidarity from the Chinese people through free speech? Call for help from elected representatives of the people? Challenging the Party in an independent judiciary?

>Refusing to comply with official decrees and get banned altogether?

You can argue about motive and whether China would even let them compete but isnt this is what Facebook/Google have done for a decade? HN dislikes these companies lately so somehow Google is still the one that gets the most flak for China while Apple and MSFT do whatever is asked of them to operate there.

Google's move has done so much more harm than good overall. I still sympathize with it. But objectively it's bad for everyone except the Party. In China we're drifting into an internet without search engine now. It's probably not easy for people who take searching for granted to imagine. But more international companies operating in China means we can somewhat maintain a level of contentedness. Censorship is bad, but when you have to choose that and North Korea, well...

What’s interesting is that people like yourself think the world is the same everywhere.

China has a different culture and different laws that we do not control.

Companies have two choices: play by the rules or don’t play at all.

> China has a different culture and different laws that we do not control.

That's true, but it's also not that simple. That different culture is not uniform, and those laws may be illegitimate from many perspectives.

> Companies have two choices: play by the rules or don’t play at all.

The two choices company should have is play by moral rules or not play at all.

If Apple wants to do business in one country in a way that upsets people in another country, then they have to face the consequences of that contagion. I honestly don't know what you expect to be different; people aren't rule-following robots.

The US legal system allows Apple to push back on the FBI. China, in contrast, does not have strong rule of law... it's rule of the Communist Party.

Edit: and the CCP would be happy to kick out Apple and see their marketshare go to Hauwei or another Chinese company. Apple really has no leverage.