I will not be surprised if further reporting points a finger at the influence of China as well.
Apple already conceded to hosting Chinese iCloud data on Chinese servers, and that news came out about 2 years ago... which is also the timeframe reported for this decision to forego end-to-end encryption of iCloud backups.
I'm guessing here, but I think it's safe to assume that China was not going to permit such encryption (for the same reason they insist on hosting the data) and thus to provide it for the U.S., Apple would have had to fork iCloud. Add in the political risk in the U.S. and you have a recipe for "maybe not."
Apple already conceded to hosting Chinese iCloud data on Chinese servers, and that news came out about 2 years ago... which is also the timeframe reported for this decision to forego end-to-end encryption of iCloud backups.
I'm guessing here, but I think it's safe to assume that China was not going to permit such encryption (for the same reason they insist on hosting the data) and thus to provide it for the U.S., Apple would have had to fork iCloud. Add in the political risk in the U.S. and you have a recipe for "maybe not."