China says “No!” to Apple products in government agencies

From this day onward, Apple will have a pretty hard time penetrating Chinese government structures and agencies, as the most populous country in the world has prohibited the purchase and use of all of Cupertino's products. The ban has been made official by the National Development and Reform Commission of China and the reasons behind it are the country's fears and doubts that Western hardware might be used for government spying and the uncovering of state secrets thanks to their location-tracking abilities.

All of Apple's devices, including all renditions of the iPhone and the iPad, are now unapproved by government employees. Interestingly enough, said Apple products reportedly made it to the draft of the approved devices list back in June, but its final version is devoid of them.

This is not the first time China has turned its back to US-made technology, as Edward Snowden's disclosures about NSA's purported spying habits has multiplied China's fears and that the USA might be trying to get hold of their statewide secrets. Several months ago, it was confirmed that the NSA has spied on Huawei, one of the largest local smartphone manufacturers, which greatly unsettled China's government agencies.

Neither the local branch of Apple, nor the Chinese National Development and Reform Commission have commented on the matter yet, but Cupertino claimed multiple times that it has never allowed any government institution to retrieve information from its servers and never will. 

source: Reuters