> That's because it doesn't want its executives in China to be disappeared, or denied an exit visa, or simply arrested arbitrarily. Well, to be fair, there are

> That's because it doesn't want its executives in China to be disappeared, or denied an exit visa, or simply arrested arbitrarily. Well, to be fair, there are also other more practical factors at play ! 1. The sheer size of the market. Population of China is bigger than that of the US and the EU combined. 2. Although Apple are working on establishing manufacturing elsewhere, a large portion of their manufacturing still happens in China at the moment. I suspect, if you were in Apple's shoes, loosing (1), (2) or both is a far worse position to be in than one or two executives "disappearing". Executives "disappearing" is of course bad, but they are ultimately replaceable. Loosing the Chinese market or having constraints put on your manufacturing at short notice is a significantly bigger problem. Its the same reason Microsoft famously had no choice but to show the Chinese the Windows source code. I'm not defending China. I'm just saying, if you want to have business operations in a country (China or otherwise), you play by their rules. Being a large multi-national will only ultimately give you so much leeway with the authorities.