“Mom, I humble myself to gold, / He is my love and my beloved, / Because of pure love / He is always yellow. / Then double or simple / He does whatever I want, / strong knight / no money“. The famous poem Quevedo wrote in 1603 is still the same as it was at the time. And if not, let them tell Apple.
According to The Information, the Cupertino company Secretly paid $275 billion to the Chinese government With one goal: to be allowed to work and do business in the Asian giant. And if you have to change Apple Maps maps in favor of China, well done.
Live (pay) and let live
The documents they had access to in the information indicate this In 2016, Tim Cook reached an agreement with the Chinese government Which allowed Apple not to suffer restrictions on its operations in this country.
The duration of the agreement was five years and its value is estimated at $275 billion. With this money Apple You will succeed in satisfying the members of the Chinese government Who thought Apple wasn’t doing enough for this country’s economy.
Cook visited China several times in 2016 to try to prevent China from restricting platforms such as the App Store, Apple Pay or iCloud. To facilitate relations with Chinese leaders, the agreement included Apple’s commitment Helping Chinese Manufacturers Develop “Most Advanced Manufacturing Technologies” As well as to train workers.
The agreement was part of one of the China’s five-year plans To strengthen its economy, the idea was that Apple “grow with Chinese companies to achieve mutual benefits and status win-win“.
Cook continued to visit China regularly, for example in March 2019 partner At an economic forum, he “praised China for its openness to the world.” The agreement is also surprising as much Allows Apple to avoid retaliation in China, especially with the trade war causing Huawei to be greatly affected by the veto implemented by the US government.
In addition to the economic agreement, Apple also made other concessions. According to information, in early 2015 Chinese body He asked Apple to make Senkaku Islands, which is part of Japan but which China claims as its Diaoyu Islands, will appear larger than usual even when zoomed out.
Google Maps correctly records the names of the Senkaku Islands. In Apple Maps, they cannot be located by their Japanese or Chinese names.
If the Cupertino company doesn’t, they won’t agree to sell the Apple Watch in China, and the extortion runs. In the Apple Maps app on macOS, for example, these islands do not appear in the search engineAnd when searching for their location we see how this archipelago appears without information, as if the terrain was unexplored.
How do they explain and Business Insider, An apple He definitely made an obvious investment in the technological and commercial development of China. In 2016 he signed an agreement With the largest wind turbine manufacturer in China, Xinjiang Goldwind Science and Technology.
What’s more Transfer Chinese user data from iCloud to data centers in China in 2017and launched a $300 million fund to develop clean energy in China In the summer of 2018. During this time, it also opened 11 new physical stores in mainland China.
This all adds up to the preferential treatment that China receives in other parts of the Apple ecosystem. The company shows its chest when talking about privacy, but the measures it enforces to protect that privacy in other countries Not applicable in Chinawhere for example Remove many VPN services apps from the App Store.
Option private relayintroduced a few months ago, It won’t be activated in the Asian giant either. With it, user-generated and transmitted traffic is encrypted in such a way that no one can see the content of the browsing data, avoiding curious looks (even curious governments).
The effort paid off: According to information in the 12 months that ended last September for Apple Income of 68 billion dollars in China, a record figure that makes a fifth of all Apple sales due to the Asian giant. Well, that. What Quevedo said.
via | the information
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