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Apple's Cook & Facebook's Zuckerberg meet with Chinese President Xi

Apple CEO Tim Cook and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg both spoke with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday, meeting in Beijing while attending an annual summit of advisers to Tsinghua University's business school.

Both Cook and Zuckerberg are on the advisory board of the Tsinghua School of Economics and Management, Reuters noted. An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment on Cook's "schedule and/or meetings," but Zuckerberg publicly acknowledged his trip to Beijing in a Facebook post. It's unknown what the trio discussed.

Both CEOs have a strong incentive to ingratiate themselves to Xi, who recently consolidated more power at this year's Communist Party Congress. Facebook has been blocked in China since 2009, and Apple is not only on the verge of launching the iPhone X in the country but dealing with censorship at the App Store, disabled LTE on the Apple Watch, and Qualcomm lawsuits threatening to stop iPhone production.

Apple also recently established its first data center in the country in order to comply with local laws, and risks having that center raided or shut down if it offends the Communist leadership.

Earlier today, Canalys research suggested that the iPhone 8 has been doing reasonably well in China, reversing a long-standing decline in local iPhone sales.



13 Comments

sflocal 17 Years · 6150 comments

China needs to be booted out of the WTO.  Period.  China believes it's market influence gives it the ability to skirt WTO rules without penalty.  The world needs to band together and tell China that it will no longer tolerate market abuses and protectionism.

4 Likes · 0 Dislikes
smaffei 12 Years · 237 comments

…risks having that center raided or shut down if it offends the Communist leadership.

And that's what you get when you cow-tow to a leadership that routinely violates the civil rights of it's populous. 


Shame on you Apple. I hope you do get shutdown.

SpamSandwich 20 Years · 32917 comments

"What is thy bidding, my Master?"


1 Like · 0 Dislikes
red oak 14 Years · 1107 comments

One has a $60 billion/yr business in China.  The other has $0

1 Like · 0 Dislikes
cali 11 Years · 3494 comments

red oak said:
One has a $60 billion/yr business in China.  The other has $0

And he’s tagging along.

hmm.... I wonder why?

1 Like · 0 Dislikes