Chinese government sets up committee to watch over Apple's new iCloud data center

China's Guizhou province is setting up a working committee specifically to oversee Apple's new data center in the region, which was established to comply with cybersecurity laws that went into effect earlier this year.

"The provincial government has decided to form a development and coordination working committee to quicken the setting up of Apple's iCloud project," according to an announcement seen by Reuters. The group should include about 10 people, such as Guizhou's Executive Vice Governor Qin Rupei, and its Deputy Secretary-general, Ma Ningyu.

Apple launched the data center in July with the assistance of a local firm, Guizhou-Cloud Big Data Industry. Firms operating in China must now store sensitive data on local servers, and pass security reviews before they can transfer it elsewhere.

In the past few months the Communist Party has cracked down on internet freedoms, looking to reduce political dissent and other unwanted elements. That includes blocking unapproved VPN services, which recently led to Apple pulling a number of App Store titles.

That action drew criticism from people saying the company is willing to overlook rights abuses in favor of profits. In a quarterly results call, CEO Tim Cook defended Apple's stance, saying that while it would "rather not remove the apps," it believes that "participating in markets and bringing benefits to customers is in the best interest of the folks there."

"So we believe in engaging with governments even when we disagree," Cook said, adding that Apple hopes restrictions will eventually loosen.

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7 Comments

anantksundaram

said about 6 years ago

Ah, a PRC "committee."

Sounds benign.

Rayz2016

said about 6 years ago

AppleInsider said:

China's Guizhou province is setting up a working committee specifically to oversee Apple's new data center in the region, which was established to comply with cybersecurity laws that went into effect earlier this year.

"So we believe in engaging with governments even when we disagree," Cook said, adding that Apple hopes restrictions will eventually loosen.

Hah, well yes, there's always hope. :-/

holyone

said about 6 years ago

You know China is probably going to be Apple biggest Achilles hill, I'm so very interested to see where Tim desides to draw the line with the Chinese coz boy are they gona test his resolve.

Off topic but: Question

Hypothetically speaking, say Elon or who ever developed a viable method of deploying thousands of satalites to LEO around the world that could beam the Internet to every corner of the Earth, would that completely fuck control freak governments like China over, or would they find some way of blocking the signals still, I mean say after the satalites were deployed Apple announced that models that people already owned would work with the new system such that Apple's entire base there gained access instantly and there was some kind of way to pay for access with out the government being able to stop it using bitcoins or something like also that such that blocking any new iPhones in China would be partially pointless, what could China's retaliatory move be ?

anantksundaram

said about 6 years ago

holyone said:

Hypothetically speaking, say Elon or who ever developed a viable method of deploying thousands of satalites to LEO around the world that could beam the Internet to every corner of the Earth, would that completely fuck control freak governments like China over, or would they find some way of blocking the signals still, I mean say after the satalites were deployed Apple announced that models that people already owned would work with the new system such that Apple's entire base there gained access instantly and there was some kind of way to pay for access with out the government being able to stop it using bitcoins or something like also that such that blocking any new iPhones in China would be partially pointless, what could China's retaliatory move be ?

To the extent that Musk or whoever does, or expects to do business in China, you know there'll be serious retaliatory leverage.

viclauyyc

said about 6 years ago

holyone said:

You know China is probably going to be Apple biggest Achilles hill, I'm so very interested to see where Tim desides to draw the line with the Chinese coz boy are they gona test his resolve.

Off topic but: Question

Hypothetically speaking, say Elon or who ever developed a viable method of deploying thousands of satalites to LEO around the world that could beam the Internet to every corner of the Earth, would that completely fuck control freak governments like China over, or would they find some way of blocking the signals still, I mean say after the satalites were deployed Apple announced that models that people already owned would work with the new system such that Apple's entire base there gained access instantly and there was some kind of way to pay for access with out the government being able to stop it using bitcoins or something like also that such that blocking any new iPhones in China would be partially pointless, what could China's retaliatory move be ?

Chicom will just ban the sale of the equipment that is capable to connect to the satellite. Yes people can buy it from black market but the mass will have problems to get the equipment. Or they can just ban people to use it. Whoever get caught will get send to jail for 6 months or huge fine.