Operating System Warfare - Even Basic Smartphone Functions Are Subtle Influencers.
With iOS 17, comes another micro victory for the CCP. A reminder we are playing a long game.
Comprehensive Opinion Management
North South East West and Center too, the party rules over all:
Even your pocket.
In addition to news, movies, art, education, the CCP wants to control every situation where an opinion could be formed. Opinion management by social media is well known and researched. But even long term Dictatorship watchers can be taken by surprise by how thorough, incremental, and creative the regime can be, leaving no opportunity to monitor and persuade you underutilised.
Hardware:
The CCP wants to fully control the devices that send and receive information. Promoting local champions so that most devices are subject to full CCP control is an ongoing project, currently under threat by technology, primarily chip restrictions from non Chinese producers.
Making Progress: Huawei Mate 60 Pro
In terms of hardware sinicisation, one expert (Geekerwan) estimates that Huawei are now only one to two years behind Qualcomm.
China Smartphone Market Rule No. 1: Apple is Not Allowed to Win.
The graph above shows that Apple has been boxed in at around or under 10 % of the Chinese market for most of the last decade. As restrictions on chips took effect, iPhone sales actually rose in China, during and because of the chip war. Huawei has taken a huge hit, falling from nearly 25 % of the market to around 10% now.
Chinese authorities naturally want Apple to only have a token presence in the Chinese market, and are likely alarmed by these statistics. They need to steer revenue in Huawei’s direction so that it will have funds to invest in surpassing non China technology. The alternative is indirect or even direct subsidies. This is hard to do now the Chinese economy and government budget is struggling.
So new rules banning iPhone use in government departments is a step in reducing market demand, as well as a tit for tat response to US rules on Huawei.
It may have a much greater impact than the US restriction had on Huawei, as not only is the Chinese government a large employer, but if this applies (already, or soon) to state enterprises, and large private enterprises, then it may help shed a few percentage points of growth for Apple, during the next few years as Huawei, and presumably others (ZTE, Oppo), close the gap on chip technology.
This is just the latest chapter in a long ugly battle. Foreign smartphone producers were always fighting not only competitors, but the referee1.
I tried to use iCloud and gmail via the web in China more than a decade ago.
It was strangely slow and difficult to get to work. Staff and relatives in China did not want to use either for email. Chinese equivalents worked fine in the same environment. It was obvious the foreign competition was artificially slowed down.
We bought iPhones for elderly relatives in China, but FaceTime was terrible compared to video calls via WeChat.
Apple wasn't competing on a level playing field, but for some reason, 10 % of Chinese buyers still seemed to buy iPhones. Our relatives did not replace Apple with Apple. The majority of Chinese consumers were shifting to 国产 （gúo chǎn) and proudly buying locally produced phones.
Famous Singer Caught in Commercial Cross-Fire
On and off, the Party controlled media (ie all Chinese media) have been conducting a war against Apple, for at least a decade, and even First Lady Major General Peng Li Yuan got caught in the cross-fire - for using an iPhone.
First it created a scandal, then censors raced to scrub it from the Chinese internet altogether.
Yet Apple stayed the course, they were stuck assembling and making many parts in China, and the sheer size of the Chinese market makes it hard to back away from.
So getting back to 90 % 国产 (gúo chǎn) (Chinese phones) in smartphone ownership (in China), is a difficult but achievable technological, marketing and political goal, that the party-state can hope to successfully prosecute.
Software:
Development of fully Chinese software would tighten CCP control further. This appears to be progressing fast.
Not Quite Living in Perfect Harmony
Chinese phones still use software (eg “Harmony”) built on Google’s Android system.
In the age of digital (and supply chain) decoupling, China’s desire for digital sovereignty is not unsurprising, to reduce national security vulnerabilities and reliance on foreign suppliers.
Harmony OS
Open Kylin Desktop OS
Open Kylin (麒麟 / qí lín）, a desktop operating system, was released this year, created on the basis of Linux, with input from Chinese government agencies, departments and enterprises.
So both in hardware and software, China’s ability to control and monitor users of their technology, inside and outside China is advanced and progressing.
So, what does the battlefield look like for iPhone ? How will this play out ? To protect sales in China and the supply chain, what (further2) moral compromises will Apple need to make ?
Let’s take a look at a few:
Chinese Territorial Aggression Via iPhone:
I just upgraded my iPhone software to iOS 17. I went to read a Chinese news language article, and enlisted the help of Apple Translate:
in Apple’s Translation function, in iOS 16, below, the “T” word is used in reference to 繁体字 fán tǐ zì traditional characters. T being Taiwan, not Traditional.
iOS 16 - Mandarin Translation for Taiwanese
Now, however, in Apple’s iOS 17, Taiwan has disappeared. Traditional Characters are available, and the Taiwan accent when speech is activated, is the same as before.
iOS 17 - Taiwan is now part of China:
Taiwanese Apple iPhone users can still use the translate functions, but they will be “reminded”that they are “part of China” when doing it.
Built in dictionaries are another battlefield. Apple’s “look up” function for Chinese phrases, uses standard Chinese dictionaries, and unwittingly3 perpetuates Chinese propaganda tropes.
These changes and features may seem trivial, but like water cutting through stone (滴水穿石 / dī shǔi chūan shí), it’s the sum of small actions that reshape opinions over time.
Map Wars:
The first time I noticed operating system based information warfare / influence operations, was Apple Maps vs Google Maps.
It seemed to me that the border between India and China had been set to where China would have it - the wider gray lines below divide countries, the similar but narrower lines delineate states. Because of the white snow, it is hard to see the dashed line that indicates a disputed border.
I believed that Apple had unilaterally ceded the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh - to China.
On closer inspection, both companies have gone to great pains to outline disputed areas, without taking sides. Google and Apple studiously avoid showing ocean boundaries.
What I did notice, to my surprise, is that the font used by both companies for Taiwan, is equivalent to that of a Nation State. Seems like Alphabet and Apple have decided that Taiwan is an independent country. Given the PRC’s efforts to force Airlines and hotels to describe Taiwan as part of China, this seems like a concession on China’s part.4
Google Maps, either by oversight or because they have nothing much left to lose by angering China5, went further:
Since google is basically summarising Wikipedia, they get a result reflecting the agenda of the Wikipedia entry producers. And Chinese authorities must hate this.
Bold Stuff But….
Did anyone at Apple or Google ask the government on Taiwan how they want to be described?
OK, So What ?
The battle for hardware and software is about access to your information. This is well understood. As China consolidates its control over Chinese smartphones and computers, the next step will be to influence beyond China through technology, not made or directly controlled by China.
Chinese made hardware and software will be built to facilitate 舆论管理 / 舆情管理 (yúlùn gǔanlǐ / yúqíng gǔanlǐ) - public opinion management. This is a component as essential as the battery or screen. They might like to hack phones and computers, but legal and not necessarily secret battles will be fought to influence non Chinese phones and computers, with the economic sticks and carrots being access to the Chinese market.
Apps and Systems To Watch:
Maps - Make sure Tim Cook doesn’t accidentally or otherwise give away part of your country, or trade it with China.
Dictionaries - Not new but weaponised in digital form. How are your values represented ?
News algorithms - Separate from directly influencing media reporting, Pressure will be brought to bear to influence a search function in the Apple or Google News apps to provide the news that “Tells China’s Story Well”, and suppress that which the CCP don’t like.
Search algorithms - Searching for information on line, one way to bury information the CCP don’t like is to flood the internet with their story. This only works if it is at the top of the search list or YouTube play list. Pressuring those building the algorithm to play ball may not be that hard, if you can pay to be listed higher. The emergence of Chat GPT style AI and it’s ability to search and inform, has opened up a whole new battlefield for opinion management.
Left out of this discussion, are the individual apps themselves, which is an entirely separate story, especially social media apps. Some of our thoughts on this are included in these related documents.
and
Chinese Government
Have Apple made moral compromises with China already ? the first thing that comes to mind is complying with censorship, but some would accept that complying with a countries laws in that country, might be ok. The idea in this essay is to identify challenges going forward in the “operating system battleground”
There are multiple dictionaries to choose from. But for simplified characters used in the PRC, this example is what you get for the definition of 徒有虚名 （tú yǒu xū míng) - not live up to ones name. So you get exposed to repetition of cynicism about democracy.
What I would like to check is Apple Maps when IN CHINA - it may default to a local map provider and show Taiwan and border areas differently.
Google / Alphabet has largely withdrawn from China.