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For years, the Chinese government has ordered foreign devices. Today, reports of new restrictions have angered Apple investors, widening geopolitical tensions.
By Keith Bradsher, Chris Buckley and Tripp Mickle
Keith Bradsher in Beijing and Chris Buckley in Taipei, Taiwan, are correspondents in China. Tripp Mickle, a technology correspondent in California, writes about Apple.
China has been discouraging the use of foreign-made electronics through government officials for a decade. He called on state-owned agencies and companies to upgrade U. S. PC servers and other devices with domestic ones. And officials show Americans their phones made through Huawei, China’s cellphone giant.
Now, some workers at government companies have said they have obtained directives prohibiting them from using Apple iPhones for work. Chinese netizens have also circulated accounts and screenshots allegedly involving notices to government workers and state-owned enterprises ordering or urging them to adopt national cellphone brands. Phones and computers for your work.
The Chinese government has made no public statements about broader restrictions on iPhones. The suggestion that Apple might lose ground in the valuable Chinese market sent the company’s stock tumbling, and Apple’s most popular product was caught up in the patience of China-U. S. relations. around technology.
Chinese censors, usually diligent in policing data on the Internet, appear to have done little or nothing to put an end to accusations of restrictions, the Wall Street Journal first reported.
Hu Xijin, retired editor of a tabloid run by the Communist Party and now a nationalist commentator with 25 million followers, wrote about them on his blog. “If this trend continues, the United States will most likely be the biggest loser,” Mr. Brown wrote. . Hu on Weibo, a popular Chinese social networking site. In a written reaction to questions, M. Hu said U. S. policy has forced China to be more “vigilant” on security issues.
On Sunday, President Biden told a press convention in Vietnam that China’s plan to restrict government use of a “Western mobile phone” is evidence that “China is starting to replace some gambling regulations in terms of industry and other issues. “
Some provincial employees, who make up the bulk of Chinese government employees, denied being informed of any bans. They have been the target of previous efforts to discourage the use of Apple devices, especially after Edward J. Snowden, a U. S. contractor. The U. S. government released data in 2013 revealing U. S. surveillance around the world.
Both the United States and China have much to lose in the geopolitical struggle over electronics.
Apple is more visual in China than Chinese brands like Huawei and Xiaomi in the United States. But since Apple and many other consumer electronics makers have moved much of their production to China, one of the biggest categories of the U. S. industry’s deficit with China is in smartphones.
The warnings come just after Huawei launched a smartphone with high-quality cameras, considered a rival to the iPhone. Huawei’s phone, the Mate 60 Pro, is undergoing a review in the United States to determine whether it uses PC chips made with the United States. generation whose sale to China is prohibited. Huawei has touted the phone as a national effort.
U. S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo visited Beijing and Shanghai last month and told Chinese officials that the United States would lift the recent controls it imposed on some high-tech exports to China.
Duncan Clark, an expert on China’s telecommunications sector and now chairman of BDA China, an investment advisory firm, said he believed the restrictions were “an effort to raise the stakes and remind the United States what it stands to lose” because of ongoing geopolitical frictions. .
Jean-Pierre Cabestan, professor emeritus at Hong Kong Baptist University, has a similar view. “I think it’s a reaction reaction,” he said, to U. S. efforts to deter foreign governments from installing Huawei devices in their telecommunications sectors. as well as measures taken in some U. S. states. to limit the use of TikTok, the social network. application, through government employees.
The U. S. prohibits federal agencies from buying telecommunications devices from Huawei and other Chinese manufacturers.
Cabestan said the warnings in China gave the impression of being a protective measure for state employees, not a broader effort to discourage sales of Apple devices in China.
Yet few American corporations have more to lose than Apple in rising tensions between the world’s superpowers. China is the world’s largest smartphone market and accounts for about one-fifth of Apple’s revenue. Apple does specify how many iPhones it sells in China.
More broadly, Apple has the most valuable generation company thanks to the launch of an entrepreneurial style based on Chinese production experience. The country’s gigantic workforce assembles the vast majority of iPhones sold in the world at a lower cost.
On Tuesday in California, Apple will unveil its new iPhone at a highly choreographed event that is an annual rite in Silicon Valley, and then the company will begin stocking its retail stores around the world with the new model. iPhones could potentially reduce sales this year.
Apple, which responded to requests for comment, has said publicly about the recent reports.
The iPhone has long been a symbol of prestige among Chinese marketers and popular with consumers, especially in cities. On the other hand, government workers strive to appear with their Huawei phones in public places.
Under pressure from the Chinese government, Apple has built a vast knowledge center in China, while claiming to preserve the privacy of its consumers around the world.
Some other people running in China’s central government said workers had been asked to avoid iPhones. Others described a more confusing call for the government to block foreign-branded phones and use Chinese phones.
A post circulating on WeChat, a ubiquitous Chinese social media service, cited a resolution adopted by the head of a branch that banned staff members from using smartphones, laptops and other virtual devices of foreign brands starting Sept. 7. They were also prohibited from accessing these foreign-branded products. Paintings from home. Another post on WeChat said staff members should avoid iPhones until Oct. 1.
For years, online debates have arisen over whether the Chinese government is banned from iPhones, as well as occasional denials of blanket bans. A Shanghai newspaper reported in 2014 that the Shanghai government was under pressure to abandon iPhones for security reasons.
A researcher at a government studies institute in Beijing, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the crusade to discourage the use of iPhones appeared to emerge from what Chinese officials and party newspapers described as a strategy of “substitution of domestic products. “key technologies, which has been accelerating since last year. In a speech to senior officials in February and published in July, China’s leader Xi Jinping called for greater efforts to achieve China’s self-sufficiency in clinical studies and complex technology.
“We want to go on the offensive to domestic production of clinical and technological tools and equipment, operating systems and fundamental software,” Xi said.
In recent weeks, China’s Ministry of State Security has made public cases that he says involve Chinese officials and others in sensitive roles recruited through U. S. intelligence agents. Earlier this year, the Chinese government’s secret government warned that reckless use of the phone could simply disclose officials to hack or leak sensitive information.
Amy Chang Chien, Claire Fu and Li Yuan contributed to the report.
Keith Bradsher is the Times’ Beijing bureau leader. In the past he served as bureau leader in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Detroit, as well as Washington correspondent. He has lived and reported on the pandemic in mainland China. Learn more about Keith Bradsher
Chris Buckley is the Times’ chief correspondent in China, where he has lived for a maximum of more than 30 years after growing up in Sydney, Australia. Before joining the Times in 2012, he was a Reuters correspondent in Beijing. Learn more about Chris Buckley
Tripp Mickle covers San Francisco technology, adding Apple and other companies. Previously, he spent 8 years at the Wall Street Journal reporting on Apple, Google, bourbon, and beer. Learn more about Tripp Mickle
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