Chinese government employees will now be banned from using foreign-branded phones while carrying out their duties.
According to the Wall Street Journal, such a decision is dictated by the need established by Beijing’s leaders to reduce the country’s dependence on foreign technologies. The other objective is of course to have greater control over the cybersecurity of the devices used, and more generally to avoid leaks of sensitive data. Reasons a priori quite sensible given the state of relations between the country and the United States, which also made a similar decision recently.
The response to a similar American action
If this ban does not exclusively target iPhones, but rather all smartphones that are not produced in the country, it is Apple which seems to be the most concerned. Indeed, China is one of its most important markets, and any decision in this direction could be catastrophic for the brand. Apple executives, however, should not be overly surprised by the decision, which is ultimately much less onerous than those that the American government has been able to take with regard to its Chinese competitors. Thus, at the end of 2022, the Biden administration announced that it would simply suspend the sale of new Huawei products in the territory in the name of security risks posed by the brand, which is often associated with the Chinese Communist Party and accused of spying in the name of this last.
For similar reasons, on December 30, a law was signed that banned federal employees nationwide from using TikTok on a phone used in the course of their work. Faced with such restrictions, and in the context of a broader trade war between the two countries, this measure ultimately seems neither surprising nor really excessive.
Apple tried to show white credentials
However, Apple spared no effort in trying to convince the country’s leaders that its technology was compatible with the practices of an authoritarian regime, repeatedly complying with its requests. In 2019, the American giant, for example, agreed to remove the Taiwan flag from its emojis. In 2022, he once again folded and limited the session time to 10 minutes for many protesters against the handling of COVID-19 in the country who shared information and photos via AirDrop. These choices, which can largely be questioned, are however explained by the importance of China both as a market and in Apple’s production line.
On this last point however, having felt the tide turn, the apple brand’s factories began to gradually move towards one of the country’s neighbors, India.
Source : The Verge, Wall Street Journal
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