By Yoko Kubota in Beijing and Yang Jie in Tokyo
Apple Inc. has joined the list of American companies under fire
in China over the Hong Kong protests.
The iPhone maker triggered an angry response from Chinese state
media and consumers when it approved a map app that allows
protesters to track police movements.
Apple is among the most recognizable U.S. brands in China, a
country that it relies on heavily for manufacturing and sales. The
Cupertino, Calif.-based giant was lambasted for approving the app
and accused of showing support for the protesters.
Critics say HKmap.live--which denotes the presence of police
with an emoji of a dog, a widely used insult for police officers
during the protests--will help protesters commit crimes and evade
arrest.
Late Tuesday, the Communist Party mouthpiece, the People's
Daily, strongly condemned Apple, writing that "such toxic software"
betrays the feelings of Chinese people. "Apple, like other
companies, should be able to distinguish between right and wrong
and understand that its market would only be more promising and
substantial if China and Hong Kong are doing well," the commentary
said.
The app is available in Hong Kong, the U.S. and elsewhere. It
isn't available in mainland China, where Apple has deleted hundreds
of apps in recent years to meet local laws.
Apple didn't respond to a request for comment. Dow Jones &
Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal, has a commercial
agreement to supply news through Apple services.
Apple is only the latest in a series of American businesses
dragged into controversy for inflaming Chinese sensitivities. Many
of the recent incidents have centered around the four-month-long
antigovernment protests in the Chinese special administrative
region of Hong Kong. Protesters have taken aim at Beijing's rule
and in many cases targeted branches of mainland Chinese
businesses.
The National Basketball Association is locked in an escalating
standoff with Beijing after a Houston Rockets executive tweeted in
support of the protests. This week, New York-based luxury brand
Tiffany & Co. deleted a tweet that some Chinese users said
supported the protests.
Apple hasn't attracted the same level of ire in China as the
NBA, though its situation is arguably more complex. Traditionally
focused on hardware, Apple in recent years has increasingly set its
sight on expanding services such as the App Store business, which
involves dealing with content.
The challenge that Apple now faces is "how to keep Chinese
consumers onside along with the Chinese government, but not fall
foul of Western consumers and governments, especially the Trump
administration," says Duncan Clark, a Beijing-based technology
consultant.
HKmap.live is a crowdsourcing app that relies on contributors
who submit live feeds to its database. The app uses different
emojis to pinpoint a location with live updates and traffic
information, especially during a protest.
Some icons are self-explanatory, like emojis for ambulances or
police wagons. Others require a more nuanced understanding of the
protests. For example, water drops are used to symbolize the
location of water cannons used as a crowd-control tool by police. A
dinosaur emoji warns of the elite snatch-and-arrest police squads
known "raptors."
According to the developer's Twitter account, @hkmaplive, Apple
earlier this month blocked the app from going on sale on its App
Store, saying that it could be used to evade law enforcement. Days
later, on Oct. 4, the developer said the app had been approved by
Apple.
"I don't think the application is illegal in Hong Kong," the
app's developer said in an interview, saying that it merely
consolidates information that is publicly available--for example on
Telegram, an app that protesters have been using to communicate.
The developer declined to give his or her name, citing safety
concerns.
Little is known about the developer, who is soliciting donations
via bitcoin, the anonymized cryptocurrency, to support the app and
other projects.
The Chinese Communist Party's Youth League on Tuesday drew
attention to HKmap.live after it criticized the app, and Apple, on
Weibo, China's Twitter-like service. The post solicited criticisms
from Chinese online users. "Support the Chinese brands and time to
take Apple off the shelf, " said one user.
On Weibo, a hashtag that accuses Apple of helping publicize the
movements of Hong Kong police had been viewed about 14 million
times by Wednesday afternoon.
At Apple, apps made by third parties are generally vetted by
hundreds of the company's reviewers based in the U.S., Ireland and
China, who evaluate apps to make sure they abide by the company's
guidelines and are complete and compatible.
Developers of apps that are rejected can appeal to a review
board, which ultimately reports to Apple marketing chief Phil
Schiller, who oversees the App Store. Apple declined to comment on
the review process for HKmap.live.
Apple's business model has been subjected to heavy scrutiny
throughout the continuing U.S.-China trade war, which began last
year. A reliance on the Chinese market leaves Apple exposed should
Beijing decide to retaliate against the U.S. by fanning
nationalistic sentiments among consumers to squeeze sales of
American goods.
Apple is grappling with sliding sales in China, where domestic
rivals such as Huawei Technologies Co. sell phones with similar
features to the iPhone at lower prices.
Apple was criticized in 2017 in the U.S. after disclosing that
it had removed roughly 700 virtual private network, or VPN, apps
from its Chinese App Store by the fall of that year. VPN apps allow
users to circumvent China's so-called Great Firewall to access
blocked websites. Apple said it was merely following Chinese laws
and regulations.
Joyu Wang and Dan Strumpf in Hong Kong and Tripp Mickle in San
Francisco contributed to this article.
Write to Yoko Kubota at yoko.kubota@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
October 09, 2019 07:49 ET (11:49 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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