China refutes that it accused Apple products of posing security concerns

China denies allegations made in a Bloomberg News report that it had banned the use of government money to purchase a series of Apple products. 

|
Mark Lennihan/AP
The Apple logo is illuminated in the entrance to the Fifth Avenue Apple store in New York City.

In what seems to be the latest in a series of he-said-she-said battles between China and the tech giant Apple, China has refuted a Bloomberg News report from earlier this week that stated that the Chinese government had omitted a series of 10 Apple products from the final government procurement list distributed in July. This would have meant no government money would be used to purchase these products, which included the Macbook Air, MacBook Pro, iPad, and iPad Mini, because they could have posed security concerns, according to the report, citing "officials familiar with the matter."

But according to a Friday report from Reuters, these Apple products have not in fact been excluded from the procurement list. Rather, Apple never actually applied to be on the list, the report states, citing the Central Government Procurement Center. 

Apparently, the list in question includes a series of energy-saving products and is only one of many procurement lists, the report states, adding that Apple has not previously been on the list in the past. 

Moreover, The Wall Street Journal, citing the independent Chinese news agency Caixin, noted that it's not uncommon for foreign companies to be excluded from this list, "which would not be the case if there were security concerns." Reuters seemed to confirm this statement, explaining that this past week most of the Apple products originally mentioned in the report were still available on the Central Government Procurement Centre website. The only alteration, the report notes, was a brief halt in sales so that the government could make a standard monthly price adjustment. 

"Every month we have one price adjustment to make sure the prices are aligned with market prices," a person familiar with the procurement process told Reuters. "We'll stop purchases and then restart after they're aligned."

Taken in a different light, remaining on the procurement list could be seen as a positive for Apple, which saw its iPad sales decline in its third-quarter sales from the same time last year. 

Still, this back-and-forth between China and the consumer electronics giant comes only weeks after Chinese state media accused a feature on the Apple iPhone of posing a national security threat because it could potentially reveal important state secretes. Apple subsequently refuted those allegations and Chinese media seemed to temper its initial accusations. 

It marks yet another example of the difficulty faced by US technology companies operating in China in the wake of revelations made by Edward Snowden last year.

"U.S. companies including Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, etc. are all coordinating with the PRISM program to monitor China," official Chinese media reported in June, singling out one of the US spying programs leaked by Mr. Snowden. 

More recently, Microsoft has become embroiled in an antitrust investigation in China. 

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to China refutes that it accused Apple products of posing security concerns
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Technology/Horizons/2014/0808/China-refutes-that-it-accused-Apple-products-of-posing-security-concerns
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe