Unfortunately its the law of the land there, so yes -- it is enough to comply. There's an argument of not participating to make a statement like Google tried, b

Unfortunately its the law of the land there, so yes -- it is enough to comply. There's an argument of not participating to make a statement like Google tried, but in the end China is more than happy to replace any western company with a home-grown alternative (which is going to have far deeper roots to the Chinese government). So long as Apple is not beholden to those laws elsewhere, I think it's probably a net good that they are present in that country than not. Second, much of Apple's strength comes from its supply and manufacturing advantage which -- depends on China not just as a customer marketplace but that it's the only place with the skills to turn on a dime and produce the products at scale. Third, look at VTI - Vanguard Total Stock market index. Apple is 2.83% of the entire damn thing. Microsoft next at 2.5% followed by Google, Amazon, and FB. Probably a big deal, particularly for Apple given they're the one actually building physical objects in China, to suddenly be the political football between two nations. It's probably hard enough, and maybe at some point better automation will bring manufacturing back to the US but it's also very likely China will be better in that regard for some time. Things are more complicated than "just don't cooperate", as much as I philosophically would cheer on such behavior I don't think in the net it would end up good. Additionally, even for Chinese consumers iPhones are likely the most secure by a lot (though intercepted cloud services are a big unknown now) -- so I'd rather they have access to the devices. Maybe some of them pay attention to where Apple stands on things, and over the long run Chinese citizens might push local laws in a more liberal direction (though not an easy thing to do, obviously) but it's not going to happen if western companies don't participate at all. Or, consider users all over the world. How good is it for everyone's privacy if iPhones now start at $1500 because they can't be built in China anymore. Probably would mean a lot less people on secure iPhones vs. less supported/out of date Android phones.