Tim Cook touts Apple’s ‘symbiotic relationship’ with China

As tensions between Beijing and Washington continue to rise, Tim Cook touted Apple’s “symbiotic relationship” with CCP-controlled China during a high-profile weekend trip to the country.
Apple CEO Tim Cook
Thomas Barrabi for the New York Post:

Cook was reportedly greeted with applause as he took the stage at the state-sponsored China Development Forum in Beijing in what was his first in-person trip to the country since the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020.
“This has been a symbiotic kind of relationship that I think we both enjoyed,” Cook said while discussing Apple’s growth in China, according to Bloomberg.
The trip represented the latest step in a high-wire act for Cook, who is aiming to maintain Apple’s operations in China without drawing the ire of US lawmakers increasingly wary of Beijing’s influence over US companies.
Apple has faced criticism for complying with Chinese censorship laws in its App Store even as it touts a commitment to data privacy and human rights.
The iPhone maker’s efforts in China were complicated in recent months by Beijing’s “Covid Zero” policy, which forced factory shutdowns that led to product shortages during the key holiday shopping season.

MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote back in 2019, pre-COVID response hysterics:
There exists a dichotomy that screams hypocrisy that is impossible to overlook:
Apple CEO Tim Cook, winner of the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights’ 2015 Ripple of Hope Award for “his lifelong commitment to human rights,” who subsequently took a place on the board Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights the following year, and winner of Newseum’s 2017 Free Expression Award in the Free Speech category, no less, also aids and abets China’s commitment to violating human rights with serial regularity.
Two phrases immediately spring to mind:
• Do as I say, not as I do.
• Talking the talk, but not walking the walk.
Accepting awards, plaudits, and board positions for “free speech” and “human rights” while banning publications and protest apps are tough actions to reconcile due to their diametrically opposed nature.
For how long can Tim Cook, and by extension, Apple, get away with positioning themselves as the world’s white knight while kowtowing to every whim of the Chinese authoritarian socialist censors?
This is about leadership, or lack thereof.
Obviously, in recent days, this all seems to be coming to a head, but it’s been building for years.
• Apple removes Quartz news app from App Store in China over Hong Kong coverage – October 10, 2019
• Apple kowtows to China by censoring Taiwan flag emoji – October 7, 2019
• Apple Music censors songs in China that reference Tiananmen massacre, democracy – April 9, 2019
• Apple removes VPN apps from China App Store – July 29, 2017
• In bid to improve censorship, China to summon Apple execs to discuss stricter App Store oversight – April 20, 2017
• Apple removes New York Times apps from App Store in China at behest of Chinese government – January 4, 2017

China is critical for Apple in every way from sales to product assembly, so Apple continues to kowtow to China. With Apple’s strong stance – in other places of the world – on users’ rights and privacy, it’s a bad look for the company and a tough tightrope that Tim Cook is trying to walk. — MacDailyNews, July 29, 2017
See also:
• Tim Cook firmly latched Apple onto China’s CCP teat. What’s his plan for weaning it off? – November 2, 2022
• Apple CEO Tim Cook signed secret $275+ billion deal with China in 2016 – December 7, 2021
• Tim Cook’s Apple is built in China; now it has to answer to the Chinese Communist Party – May 17, 2021
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