Is Apple Bending Under Pressure from China?

At least two Chinese-language newspapers in Australia have accused Apple of pulling advertisements from their publications for political reasons, possibly under pressure from Beijing. Specifically, the two independent media outlets allege that local wireless carriers have stopped placing ads for Apple products within their pages at Apple’s request, according to The Australian.

Maree Ma, who is the general manager of The Vision Times China and handles advertising for the newspaper in Sydney, says that her paper has not featured any Apple products in its ads since October 2015. Ma further states that she heard last August that Apple had instructed major telcos and wireless carriers in Australia not to advertise for iPhones in The Vision Times China.

Since then, Ma noticed that Telstra, Australia’s largest telecommunications and media company, had excluded her paper from its iPhone ad campaigns.

“The last time we had iPhone ads from Telstra was in October 2015. Since then, when Telstra runs their iPhone ads, they do not place any with our paper,’’ she said. “There was a campaign last year in 2016 we missed out on.”

Now, Ma says, whenever major carriers take out advertisements in her paper, they do not feature Apple products. Since Apple marketing campaigns still regularly feature in Beijing-aligned Chinese media outlets in Australia, she has surmised that The Vision Times China has been “blacklisted” by Apple “for political reasons”.

Another Chinese-language paper, The Epoch Times, claims to have experienced similar treatment. The paper, which regularly criticizes the Chinese government and its treatment of Falun Gong practitioners, says a deal to feature Telstra ads for the iPhone 6s unexpectedly fell through in October 2015 and believes Apple torpedoed the marketing agreement.

“We have never had issues with Telstra. But then at the last minute they had to pull out then we asked why. (Our advertising agent) said it’s actually from Apple,” an Epoch Times spokesman said about the episode.

Apple has declined to comment on the matter. However, this isn’t the first time the iPhone maker has been accused of bending to the Chinese government’s will. Earlier this year in January, Apple pulled The New York Times app from its Chinese app store at the Chinese government’s request. Cupertino declined to specify what law the NYT app had violated and what form the government order took.

China is one of Cupertino’s most important markets. Last quarter, it accounted for nearly one-fifth of Apple’s $46.8 billion in revenue.

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