China is closely scrutinizing technologies from several Western companies including Apple to determine if they pose possible security threats to their users and the country amid China's already tense relations with the United States.
A report from the New York Times revealed how a committee linked to China's top censor and Internet regulator quietly targets U.S. companies such as Apple whose data storage and encryption technology was reviewed.
Citing unnamed sources who are knowledgeable about the reviews, the NY Times said that the committee associated to the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) requires executives and officials from the companies to answer queries on their products in person.
The report comes two days after China expressed their dissatisfaction on an annual Pentagon report submitted to the U.S. Congress that reportedly "distorted" the Asian country's military and cyberspace activities, as reported by the Xinhua News Agency.
The Review
Currently, Apple considers China as one of its key markets where they forecast "iPhone sales growth beyond established smartphone markets," according to the Apple Insider.
While China had been relatively eager to negotiate with international companies, it proved to be quite a difficult water to tread in for Apple especially now that the CAC committee is over its shoulder.
According to the NY Times, the Chinese reviews scrutinize products that cover more broad applications in contrast to what Western countries were used to doing.
"While other countries, including the United States and Britain, conduct reviews of some tech products, they usually focus on products that will be used by the military or other parts of the government that are concerned with security, and not on products sold to the general public," the report stated, adding that China's reviews cover products that the general public use.
Apple's Case
Worries on these mysterious reviews continue to heighten especially since Chinese officials have yet to reveal more details about it.
One Chinese-language report implies that the reviews being conducted began last year and that several companies have already been called in over the past nine months, an anonymous source said.
The NY Times report explained that since there were no parameters set, the reviews can be used to ultimately "block products without explanation or to extract trade secrets in exchange for market access."
Furthermore, more problems may arise from this if such secrets were leaked to competing companies and become vulnerable to exploitation by cyberspace criminals.