Customers experience Apple products at a new-opened Apple Store in Tianhe District on Feb. 2, 2016 in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province of China. (Photo : Getty Images/ ChinaFotoPress)
China has recently taken a decision to prohibit Apple from offering the company's iTunes Movies and iBook Store services. Some experts are of the view that China may eventually shut out the world's most valuable company from the country.
The move by the Chinese authorities has shocked the executives of the Cupertino-based tech firm, as China is not only the second largest market for the company's iPhone globally, but the country also featured highly in the company's future plans. Precisely speaking, the total revenue earned by Apple from across China, including Hong Kong, mainland China and Taiwan, is about one-fourth of its cumulative annual earnings, Fortune reported.
Moreover, the Cupertino tech titan has heavily invested in developing good business relations with the Chinese authorities. This is evident from the fact that CEO Tim Cook himself visited China no less than seven times since 2011, when he took over charge from Steve Jobs.
All these efforts notwithstanding, it appears that the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) gives very little value to such goodwill demonstrations. It is rare that the CCP will allow sappiness influence its decision when a foreign company, including an old "friend" like Apple, does anything that causes suspicion.
Currently, the Chinese government considers Apple's digital books as well as movies to be a potential threat to its continuing campaign to shut out the liberal ideas of the West. Moreover, it is likely that the government's belief that the Cupertino tech titan may someday control digital content market in China may also have slighted Beijing.
According to Eurasia Group founder and a top expert on global political risk to corporations, Ian Bremmer, it is possible that Apple eventually China may completely shut Apple out of China. "It is very possible," CNBC quoted Bremmer as saying.
Bremmer further said that he would be very surprised if he saw Apple enjoying the same level of access to the Chinese consumer five years hence as they presently enjoy. He envisaged Apple confronting similar issues that Facebook is currently facing in China. China has already blocked Facebook and Twitter.
Meanwhile, other experts are of the view that the unpleasant experience of Apple in China is a sort of warning for other American tech titans keen to invest in China. They suggest that the powerful CCP does not want any foreign firm to question its dominance in the country
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