I'm absolutely 100% certain that someone in the US was aware of this change, and signed off on it. What I'm saying is that there is no circumstance in which I'd personally do that, and as someone who is comparatively "rich" worldwide as an engineer, I have that luxury of putting my foot down and not doing it. I can have a new job tomorrow that probably pays me yet more.
I don't blame anyone who is making $30k a year for going along with bad-politics at a company. But if you're making over 100k a year as an engineer? Yea, I hold you accountable for your actions and implementing bad politics.
What makes you think that it was an engineer in the US who made the change? Apple's got employees all over the world, including in China. If anything, my first guess was the update was made from a team based in shanghai or shenzhen, since the emoji is already banned there.