The CCP has Apple hostage. Their products are (effectively) all made there.
China has more control over Apple than the US does, at present. They are, of course, in crash override priority mode trying to change that, but nowhere else on earth can manufacture (on average) 20,000 iPhones per hour, 24/7/365. (TBH it’s probably closer to 50k per hour in the months up to release day.)
The iPhone is a Chinese product, made by tens of thousands of Chinese people, on machines in China, subject to Chinese jurisdiction and law. That’s an uncomfortable fact for the US economy.
If Apple doesn’t do exactly what China wants them to do, the iPhone does not exist, and Apple as we know it today does not exist.
US government has FAR more control over Apple as a company. China only has control of the Chinese operations. The president is personally beefing with companies and buying stakes in them. The tariffs alone could have severely hurt Apple, but Apple bent over backwards to appease the president. The US government can simply request an app be removed and Apple and Google will do it worldwide.
China does not have that power over Apple. China can threaten Apple but they have already diversified their manufacturing to other countries so China does not have a strangle hold on the supply line.
Apple has to comply by Mainland rules. In addition to the supplychain that is slowly getting diversified, all Mainland customer data is handled by a co-owned (not sure %, or if it is 100% outsourced) datacenter in Guizhou.
China has more control over Apple than the US does, at present. They are, of course, in crash override priority mode trying to change that, but nowhere else on earth can manufacture (on average) 20,000 iPhones per hour, 24/7/365. (TBH it’s probably closer to 50k per hour in the months up to release day.)
The iPhone is a Chinese product, made by tens of thousands of Chinese people, on machines in China, subject to Chinese jurisdiction and law. That’s an uncomfortable fact for the US economy.
If Apple doesn’t do exactly what China wants them to do, the iPhone does not exist, and Apple as we know it today does not exist.