This is a fair point. Laws are different, so procedures can be different. Not to mention the city’s situation is critical - protests - violence from both side.

Following US procedures in HK does not make sense. Companies always obey local laws but not laws in another country.

That's why I said Tim Cook should actually spell out what local Hong Kong laws were violated, if any. There actually could be some, but so far I did not see anybody actually pointing out any such laws, neither the Hong Kong government, nor the myriad of journalists covering the story about the app, nor Apple which surely had their in-house counsel and maybe evn external counsel look into this matter.

After that, the next question is if Apple, which even kinda positions itself as the new "Don't be evil" company including fighting some governments e.g. when they get told to subvert their own security tech, should side with such draconian laws or with the app makers.