Some islands in the East China Sea appear larger on iPhone than their actual size in Apple’s Maps app. These are the Diaoyu Islands: eight uninhabited islets attached to Japan in 1895 and that Beijing – as well as Taiwan –claims for 50 years.
When you zoom out of the area from an iPhone, in other words when you reduce the scale, these islands are just tiny dots that disappear quite quickly: this was probably not acceptable, from China’s point of view, being given their strategic and military interest.
End of 2014 or beginning of 2015 – the date remains vague – depending on the site The Information, the Chinese Bureau of Surveys and Cartography would therefore have asked Apple to oversize the archipelago in its app called Plans… Inadmissible request, the creator of the iPhone would have first replied before folding and artificially enlarging these islands, only for Chinese users.
At the time, Apple had just presented the very first Apple Watch which would not be released until April 2015. Beijing would have, in fact, threatened Apple to block the marketing of the connected watch, if Apple did not comply, on the subject of Diaoyu Islands. And too bad if the Apple cartographers have swallowed their double decimeter.
A year later, the relationship between Apple and the Chinese regime is marked by another event, passed over in silence until the end of 2021: the signing, by Tim Cook himself, of a secret agreement. The CEO of Apple knows China very well, where he has visited many times since, under Steve Jobs, it is he who oversaw the arrival of Apple in the Middle Kingdom.
In early May 2016, several media including The Guardian announced that Tim Cook is due to travel to Beijing to meet with senior Chinese officials, including officials in charge of propaganda. The news goes almost unnoticed. The context is however particular: at the time, iPhone sales in China were declining, Apple had just announced its 1st quarter in decline for 13 years, and Beijing is putting pressure on Steve Jobs’ successor by multiplying regulatory obstacles. .
Tim Cook, defender of human rights and the environment, therefore signs this agreement which has been kept secret for more than 5 years, knowing that China now represents 55 billion dollars in turnover per year. , for Apple. Agreement extendable until May 2022: it may therefore still be in progress.
In exchange for facilitating its activity in China, the apple brand undertakes in particular a series of investments in China, for the benefit of Chinese suppliers, subcontractors and universities and to play the Chinese preference. .
“Data encryption is the same in all countries.”
Tim Cook, Apple CEOat Vice (October 2018)
But looking in retrospect over the past five years, one cannot help but draw the connection between the existence of this contract, which has remained secret, and the particularities specific to its activity in China. Indeed, what about the tens of thousands of apps withdrawn – on demand or spontaneously – by Apple from the Chinese Apple Store: gay dating apps, media apps, apps supporting the Dalai Lama, encrypted messaging apps potentially impossible to access? to watch ?
The Taiwan Flag Emoji: Why Can’t You Find It on iPhones in Mainland China? The very fact of typing the word “Taiwan” on the screen, made moreover crash certain Chinese iPhone, at one time.
Last May, Apple handed over the keys to its gigantic, brand-new data center in Guiyang, in the southeast of the country, to government officials. Inside this immense rectangular structure, as long as several football fields, are stored the emails, photos and documents of some of Apple’s Cloud subscribers in China – Apple has another data center in Inner Mongolia – as well. as the decryption keys to access it. Incidentally, all over the world, these keys are stored on French equipment, manufactured by Thales. Not in China.
Tim Cook’s team had warned him: Beijing would have cut iCloud nationwide if Apple had refused to cooperate. Apple’s CEO defended himself, notably in an interview with Vice, at the end of 2018, by affirming that the data of the Chinese are safe, and that the world is still doing better with Apple in China… than without.
Officially, Apple is content “to strictly comply with Chinese laws”.