Sure, technically, they can pass whatever laws they want as a sovereign nation. This would make it less costly from a "political capital" standpoint, though, an

Sure, technically, they can pass whatever laws they want as a sovereign nation. This would make it less costly from a "political capital" standpoint, though, and thus presumably more likely for them to do it. FTA: The White House has told Beijing that it has major concerns about its new counterterrorism law, a somewhat vague piece of legislation that may require American companies to hand over encryption keys and provide backdoor access to their computer systems. “This is something that I’ve raised directly with President Xi,” President Obama told Reuters last year. “We have made it very clear to them that this is something they are going to have to change if they are to do business with the United States.” Those demands will be harder to make if the federal government succeeds in getting Apple to give up its fight, according to one of the Senate’s leading voices on technology policy.