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Kuo: Global iPhone Shipments Could Decline Up to 30% If Apple Forced to Remove WeChat From App Store [Updated x2]
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You vastly underestimate China. They are playing the long game and doing it while the west sleeps. The Belt and Road Initiative and their buying of vast amounts of farm land in Africa are only a couple of their building blocks. The west offshoring millions of manufacturing jobs to China over the past 20 years has been an added bonus to them. China has an almost unlimited number of military and workers of all types to call upon when required.
Once again, I find myself agreeing with Trump’s actions, albeit for differing reasons.
The reason why Wechat forms such an integral part of life in China is because the Chinese government wants it that way. Let all data, communication and transactions flow through it, all the better to monitor its people with. And by extension, anyone they communicate with via said app. It doesn’t help that the only real way of communicating with people in China is via Wechat because virtually every other chat app is banned.
As such, We-chat is essentially spyware, similar to Tik-Tok.
Yeah, the ban will suck. For example, Chinese living abroad will not be able to communicate with their family members living in China. Apple’s market share in China will pretty much drop to zero if it can’t access Wechat.
And maybe it’s a painful first step that needs to be taken, even if it’s by Donald Trump, and most certainly for less than altruistic reasons.
Two senile old men fighting for power, but yeah, one is better than the other.
You can find the executive order here:
Executive Order on Addressing the Threat Posed by WeChat | The White House
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the International Emergency Economic
Section 1a says that it prohibits all US persons from engaging in transactions with Tencent related to Wechat. Given that Apple is a US company, that would clearly affect Apple app stores everywhere. Section 1b may offer a way out, as it allows the government to make exceptions by granting licenses for some transactions. However, a problem with this for Trump is that it would allow US users to easily circumvent the ban, since they could simply create an account in a foreign app store and download the app from there.
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Yup, their foreign policy is extremely low-profile.
When was China involved in a major war? They occupied Tibet and committed genocide there. They occupied Hong Kong in violation of international treaties this year. Their military has been spreading out all over the globe. They've supplied several enemies of the US and EU with weapons, prolonging wars and causing countless deaths.
It will definitely be interesting to see what happens, because it's genuinely brown trousers time at Apple.
If this order goes ahead and there's no permitted distribution in China for WeChat the company's revenue will undergo an unheard of collapse. So they'll either have to permit sideloading, or even worse, permit a Chinese owned App Store to be present (likely pre-installed) on the device. And the CCP are very likely to only permit such a store if they own it.
This is the inevitable consequence of the app store though. Apple created this situation. By locking customers into a single source of software, that means you own the consequences.
If this order goes ahead and there's no permitted distribution in China for WeChat the company's revenue will undergo an unheard of collapse. So they'll either have to permit sideloading, or even worse, permit a Chinese owned App Store to be present (likely pre-installed) on the device. And the CCP are very likely to only permit such a store if they own it.
This is the inevitable consequence of the app store though. Apple created this situation. By locking customers into a single source of software, that means you own the consequences.
Yup, if this really happens, then Apple might as well exits China market.
As for overseas Chinese, they can still use Android as Android allows alternative App Stores and sideloading. WeChat will still be available in the Xiaomi/Huawei app stores.
I would agree about China not being a good world citizen, but China is the largest market in the world. Every company would want a piece of the Chinese cake (market). Even Google is trying to crawl itself back in bit by bit. A publicly traded company would not want to completely ignore such huge market.
Go ask Nike, or the NBA, or even Hollywood.
This should be no surprise to anyone.
In addition to the points I posted earlier, a Weibo poll since last week had 1.2 million respondents (out of 1.3 million) saying they would get a new phone if WeChat were removed from the App Store.
Maybe for the Chinese iPhones. Apple seem to be willing to make specific changes just for the Chinese market. Eg. Some iPhones for China/HK have dual physical SIM support, while the rest of the world have single SIM+eSIM
Yes, also Chinese iPhones don't have the 🇹🇼 flag emoji when you type Taiwan.
Low profile? Are you sure? China has been quite prominent in SE Asian countries and taking advantages of the weaker countries economically.
Trump can’t control app stores outside the US. Your governments have to decide if they agree with him and allow the ban or if they’re willing to risk trade with the US. The choice is still yours to make.
It will impact iPhone sales but might not be as bad as people think. While WeChat is more than just a chatting app in China, Chinese people need their status symbol. People will still buy iPhone and jailbreak it to install Wechat. They will express their love of China/CCP but continue to buy imported goods especially luxury goods.
Taiwan won't be much affected. They are a free country and the people will just use another app like Whatsapp or Line. Hong Kong will be the same in short term until the great fire wall goes in effect in Hong Kong in the future.
I won't vote for Trump in Nov but I do like how he's being hard to China for whatever politics reason. Being an Asian American I know plenty of Wechat. Most boomers even outside of China use it as their main platform of messaging and news source. The amount of fake news and CCP propaganda coming out of it is ridiculous. Boomers tend to believe anything they read on Wechat and I think it's an app that's better be gone than stay.
Personally I have Wechat installed for the sole purpose of keep in touch with my relatives in China and even in USA. I won't miss it if it's going to be delisted. I'm sure people want it installed will find a way. Jailbreaking isn't anything new.
Taiwan won't be much affected. They are a free country and the people will just use another app like Whatsapp or Line. Hong Kong will be the same in short term until the great fire wall goes in effect in Hong Kong in the future.
I won't vote for Trump in Nov but I do like how he's being hard to China for whatever politics reason. Being an Asian American I know plenty of Wechat. Most boomers even outside of China use it as their main platform of messaging and news source. The amount of fake news and CCP propaganda coming out of it is ridiculous. Boomers tend to believe anything they read on Wechat and I think it's an app that's better be gone than stay.
Personally I have Wechat installed for the sole purpose of keep in touch with my relatives in China and even in USA. I won't miss it if it's going to be delisted. I'm sure people want it installed will find a way. Jailbreaking isn't anything new.
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You should really look more into the world news about what's happening in China regarding XinJiang and Hong Kong. Taiwan is a country. China has never governed Taiwan.
It's not that stratightforward. Apple is a US company and must comply with US laws and regulations, and that extends to their non-US subsidaries as well, depending on how the law was written and other factors. As I pointed out earlier, this is not unique to this case and Apple; and the issue of a country's laws applicable outside their borders is an ongoing one.
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Ain't nobody going to jailbreak an iPhone to install WeChat. Not when there's a half-dozen popular domestic brands.
As an Asian American, you probably haven't experienced 1/10 of WeChat. It's a mini-Slack platform used by most businesses for productivity. It's where parents log in to check school grades of their kids. It's used for COVID-19 to show individual health status and check-ins at restaurants.
I am asking this because I actually don’t know. Now can people use other messaging apps in China duemto the censorship? Is WeChat the only messaging app they can use?
WeChat is the biggest PLATFORM in China. It handles everything from messaging to payments. It’s basically an OS in app form.
Jpack above has a few more examples.