That statement is kind of information-free. If China knows they have Apple completely over the barrel, why wouldn't they demand a lot?
But for how they cooperate, Apple's own transparency report shows they give information on Apple customers to Chinese authorities thousands of times per year, and accept the vast majority of requests: https://www.apple.com/legal/transparency/cn.html
Likewise in Russia: https://www.apple.com/legal/transparency/ru.html
Versus Google which has avoided giving information to or censoring search results in both countries and as a result is mostly banned.
https://www.reuters.com/technology/google-is-fined-390-mln-r...
Google's given up on business there but still puts their sites out there (as they should).
Funny how you specifically mention China, as if it worked differently in USA - the country where you can get four years of jail time for talking back to police.
That said, if you live in China, you probably don't want to sync your stuff to iCloud. Not because Apple doesn't want to protect your data, but more because you can't trust anything in any data centers that are physically on Chinese soil.
But let's get real. If you're in mainland China and the authorities decide they need to confiscate your phone, you're already fscked.