Keeping Apple Away
The Chinese government has prohibited government agencies from purchasing 10 IT products imported from the United States, including Apple’s iPad and MacBook, amid its confrontation with the U.S. over information technology security issues.
According to Bloomberg News, the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Finance of China recently announced a list of government procurement items for energy conservation from which Apple’s iPad, iPad Mini, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro are excluded. These products had previously been included on the preliminary list published in June. Both Apple and the Chinese authorities have made no comment at all yet concerning this matter.
Bloomberg News reported that the decision is based on the conflict between China and the U.S. over hacking and cybercrime issues. Back in May this year, the U.S. Justice Department accused five officers of the People's Liberation Army of industrial espionage. China’s state-run CCTV, in response, reported that the iPhone’s location tracking function could be misused for state secret leaks.
Since then, the Chinese government has stopped the purchase of Symantec’s and Kaspersky’s antivirus programs and ordered its departments to not use Windows 8 OS in government agencies. The state-owned broadcaster mentioned security problems associated with Windows 8 at that time, reporting that Microsoft was engaged in espionage in cooperation with the U.S. government.
In the meantime, Chinese news channels are saying that the Bloomberg analysis is nothing but a groundless speculation. “The products of Apple were left out of the list because Apple itself gave up,” Tencent Finance reported, adding, “Apple did not submit the required documents such as an energy-saving product certificate.”
The government procurement items are used by all of the central organizations of the Chinese Communist Party and the government arms and local governments in China. The next selection is scheduled for January 2015. Dell International, Hewlett Packard, Samsung Electronics, Lenovo, and some others are expected to benefit from Apple exclusion until then.