Apple has definitely accommodated the Chinese government’s desires before: https://9to5mac.com/2018/05/19/apple-cracking-down-on-callki...

During the San Bernardino case, they have said multiple times that they cannot install software without the user entering their password.

And even if you assume a publicly traded company lying outright, what do you think is more likely: then silently backdooring the phones of people in Hongkong or pretending to have accidentally unpatched a vulnerability, hoping people would update to that OS in order for pretty obvious exploits being able to run?

If I was as evil as you make Apple out to be I would sure as hell do the former.