Apple is heavily reliant on the Chinese market, where it generates about 15% of its revenue and has much of its supply chain based. This makes Apple particularl

Apple is heavily reliant on the Chinese market, where it generates about 15% of its revenue and has much of its supply chain based. This makes Apple particularly vulnerable to pressure from the Chinese government, which has a history of using its power to influence foreign companies. In recent years, there have been several reports of the Chinese government pressuring Apple to censor its products and services. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_by_Apple https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_by_Apple For example last time I heard Apple, China and Airdrop mentioned it was in the specific context of Apple actively working with the CCP to make sure that anyone deemed “undesirable” by the government couldn’t use the feature at all. https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/11/apple-limits-iphone-filesharing-feature-used-by-protesters-in-china https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/11/apple-limits-i... Before that, the company was reportedly forced to remove VPN apps from its App Store in China https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-40772375.amp https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-40772375.amp It’s hard to say that they were entirely passive here in this instance because it seems incredibly unlikely that the TLS protocol was actually defeated which leaves only a handful of options on the table.