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China Said to Ban Government Purchases of Apple Hardware Amid Heightened Security Concerns

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MacRumors

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According to Bloomberg, China's National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Finance have prohibited government purchases of Apple hardware, citing security concerns as the reason for the ban.

ibookstore_iphone_ipad_mac.jpg
Ten Apple products were not included on a recent government procurement list from June that governs the spending of public funds, according to anonymous government officials who provided the information to Bloomberg. Products include the iPad, iPad Mini, MacBook Air and MacBook Pro.

Earlier procurement lists also banned antivirus software from Symantec and energy-efficient computers from Microsoft. Tension between China and companies in the US has been heightened following accusations of hacking and spying.
"When the government stops the procurement of products, it sends a signal to corporates and semi-government bodies," said Mark Po, an analyst with UOB Kay Hian Ltd. in Hong Kong. "The Chinese government wants to make sure that overseas companies shouldn't have too much influence in China."
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The reason for Apple's omission from the list of approved hardware is apparently being debated, however, with Caixin reporting [Google Translate] stating that Apple simplify failed to qualify for a semi-annual update to the list of approved vendors of energy-efficient devices. The report speculates that a miscommunication may have resulted in Apple failing to submit the required information for inclusion on the list.

Apple has a growing presence in China, with 26 percent revenue growth reported in Q3 2014 due to increases in iPhone, iPad and Mac sales. Apple recently opened its eleventh retail store in China and has made a concerted push to attract Chinese developers to the iOS App Store. Apple currently is the fifth largest smartphone vendor in the country, accounting for 7% of market share.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Article Link: China Said to Ban Government Purchases of Apple Hardware Amid Heightened Security Concerns
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2014/08/06/apple-china-ban-security/
4

497902

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Sep 25, 2010
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MacRumors said:
Earlier procurement lists also banned antivirus software from Symantec and energy-efficient computers from Microsoft. Tension between China and companies in the US has been heightened following accusations of hacking and spying.
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They actually banned Kaspersky too although it's from Russia. I thought the Sino-Russian relations were good.
 
Dilster3k

Dilster3k

macrumors 6502a
Jul 20, 2014
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That's so interesting, considering how much Tim Cook pushed hard to strengthen that relationship.
 
bradl

bradl

macrumors 603
Jun 16, 2008
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iBlazed said:
Linux it is then. Being that Microsoft, Apple, and Google are all American, it kind of leaves them with few options.
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Umm.. Linux was created a Finnish guy living in Portland, OR. He has been since roughly 1999, has two children (possibly more now) with one a natural born citizen. Suffice it to say, you could say that Linux has been an American product for at least 15 years.

But here's the irony of it all. They are wanting to ban Apple Hardware… hardware made in their own country, by a company based in China, using Chinese workers.

Talk about shooting themselves in the foot.

BL.
 
furi0usbee

furi0usbee

macrumors 68000
Jul 11, 2008
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LOL. So they are mad that Windows is not open source and now they are afraid Apple hardware is a security threat. Funny. Whatever China is afraid of, that's what you should be using, because obviously they are having issues spying on their citizens with those products.
 
jnpy!$4g3cwk

jnpy!$4g3cwk

macrumors 65816
Feb 11, 2010
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bradl said:
But here's the irony of it all. They are wanting to ban Apple Hardware… hardware made in their own country, by a company based in China, using Chinese workers.

Talk about shooting themselves in the foot.

BL.
Click to expand...

According to the article, it seems to be government purchases. I don't see anything about banning Apple for the general public. The government probably wants to direct more of its own money to Chinese-based companies. Many countries do that.
 
iZac

iZac

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Apr 28, 2003
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I bet there's nothing prohibiting them being 'gifted' by friends and family members though :p
 
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iBlazed

iBlazed

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Feb 27, 2014
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iZac said:
I bet there's nothing prohibiting them being 'gifted' them by friends and family members though :p
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This is about government purchases. Not the public.

----------
bradl said:
Umm.. Linux was created a Finnish guy living in Portland, OR. He has been since roughly 1999, has two children (possibly more now) with one a natural born citizen. Suffice it to say, you could say that Linux has been an American product for at least 15 years.

But here's the irony of it all. They are wanting to ban Apple Hardware… hardware made in their own country, by a company based in China, using Chinese workers.

Talk about shooting themselves in the foot.

BL.
Click to expand...

Good point, seems like an even dumber decision now.
 
C

ChrisA

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Jan 5, 2006
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iBlazed said:
Linux it is then. Being that Microsoft, Apple, and Google are all American, it kind of leaves them with few options.
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If you are a government agency I'd say away from Apple and Microsoft. If I were running a bank of any place with sensitive and attractive data I'd do the some thing.

Linux is good but we also have BSD and Solaris.


Funny that of the above Android is based on Linux and IOS on BSD. But both have many layers of stuff on top. For China their best bet is to build a trusted OS from source.
 
iZac

iZac

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Apr 28, 2003
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iBlazed said:
This is about government purchases. Not the public.
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Exactly, it won't stop iPads and Macs being used by government officials, it means they just can't bill it to Beijing. That makes them an even more appealing item for Guanxi :p
 
S

smoledman

macrumors 68000
Oct 17, 2011
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This is getting downright paranoid and spiteful. I mean banning beautiful Apple products is a human rights violation.
 
iMacFarlane

iMacFarlane

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Apr 5, 2012
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Adrift in a sea of possibilities
I work for the US government, and I can't even bring my iPhone on site, let alone be furnished one at their expense. This is in no way surprising news.

I guess we fiscally win trade wise, as they are now forbidding Apple products in their offices, we forbade furbies in ours.
 
bradl

bradl

macrumors 603
Jun 16, 2008
5,923
17,399
ChrisA said:
If you are a government agency I'd say away from Apple and Microsoft. If I were running a bank of any place with sensitive and attractive data I'd do the some thing.

Linux is good but we also have BSD and Solaris.


Funny that of the above Android is based on Linux and IOS on BSD. But both have many layers of stuff on top. For China their best bet is to build a trusted OS from source.
Click to expand...

Solaris is pretty much dead now. After Oracle bought Sun, nearly all production if it all but stopped, with a few bits here and there. The OpenSolaris project also seems to have calmed down as well. If you notice, after Oracle bought Sun, look at all that stopped or had people migrating away from it like the plague:

Java (no brainer)
MySQL (Sun bought it, Oracle bastardized it, everyone moved to MariaDB)
Solaris (see above)

Right now, FreeBSD, Linux (distro of choice goes here), AIX, HPUX, and OpenBSD are the only options left. However, all of those are US-based. Even SuSE; Novell bought them in 2003-2005.

BL.
 
scbn

scbn

macrumors 6502
Jul 25, 2010
272
22
This is just noise. How much percentage wise have the Chinese governments purchased Apple's hardware compared to the overall hardware sales of Apple in China? It's probably very small number. Governments and enterprises have never been strong markets to Apple.
 
colourfastt

colourfastt

macrumors 65816
Apr 7, 2009
1,047
964
ChrisA said:
If you are a government agency I'd say away from Apple and Microsoft. If I were running a bank of any place with sensitive and attractive data I'd do the some thing.

Linux is good but we also have BSD and Solaris.


Funny that of the above Android is based on Linux and IOS on BSD. But both have many layers of stuff on top. For China their best bet is to build a trusted OS from source.
Click to expand...

OS X is based upon the Mach kernel. Certain parts from FreeBSD's and NetBSD's implementation of Unix were incorporated in NeXTSTEP, the core of Mac OS X.
 
P

paul4339

macrumors 65816
Sep 14, 2009
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I'm not sure I understand the article properly... iPad is not banned over security concerns, but iPhone is banned ?
 
S

sir1963nz

macrumors 6502a
Feb 9, 2012
738
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jnpy!$4g3cwk said:
According to the article, it seems to be government purchases. I don't see anything about banning Apple for the general public. The government probably wants to direct more of its own money to Chinese-based companies. Many countries do that.
Click to expand...

The USA uses subsidies for its agricultural sector to help keep out goods from other countries, China uses bans to achieve the same thing. Keeping the local industry local.

Wages are rising in China so there may well be a fear that manufacturing will eventually shift to India, Indonesia, Brazil etc, this is one way China will keep manufacturing in China because it is such a large market. The USA lost its manufacturing to China/Cheap labour economies and China does not want the same pain.
 
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