File photo used for representation
Chinese government agencies have barred staff from using Apple Inc.’s iPhone and other foreign-branded devices at work, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
Staff at "some” central government regulators received instructions via chat groups and in meetings to stop bringing such gadgets into the office, the Journal said. It’s not clear how widely such orders were issued, the newspaper added.
Apple enjoys widespread popularity in China, its largest international market, despite rising resentment of American efforts to contain the Asian country’s technology industry. Its iPhones are among the country’s bestsellers and are common in both the government and private sector. Foreign devices however have long been discouraged in sensitive agencies, particularly as Beijing in recent years stepped up a campaign to reduce a reliance on technology from the US, China’s geopolitical rival.
In 2022, Beijing ordered central government agencies and state-backed corporations to replace foreign-branded personal computers with domestic alternatives within two years, marking one of the most aggressive efforts to eradicate key overseas technology from within its most sensitive organs.
