It was probably inevitable, but Apple has rolled over to pressure from the Chinese government to limit any semblance of protection for its users in China. They have removed the VPN capability from their apps that are sold in China's already restricted App Store. They are not being given a choice, but it is a long way from principles that Apple follows everywhere else. This is the same company that would not officially help recover information off terrorist's phones, yet helps the Chinese ban VPNs which offer some protection from the prying state eyes. They held out for 5 years, but have given in.
We can argue that the state does not have any say over what commercial companies do, but that would be far, far from the truth. States in general have more restrictions on telecommunications than most any other area of commerce. In most countries of the world, we cannot have secure systems because there are rules allowing the government access -both direct and indirect - to communications. They do this in the name of national security, and that is the Chinese incantation over the infrastructure that is China. There are no secrets in China. They have invented legislation that prohibits it, and companies doing business in China cooperate in a variety of ways to make sure that principle works for them. They cite business reasons for doing it, but it is a matter of principle for the users of those systems. They have no rights to privacy or freedom of expression, except those subtle ways around the censors that I have written about before.
Why do so many of our political and journalistic leaders accept this kind of thing from China but go berserk when our own government takes any kind of step in that direction? We should ask them. We should ask it of every candidate for public office and every business leader who wants to do business with China.
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