In recent months, Apple (AAPL) staff have met with Chinese officials to discuss concerns about new regulations that would restrict the tech giant from offering many of the foreign apps currently available for download on Apple's app Store in China.
Officials have told Apple that it must strictly enforce rules that ban unfiled foreign apps from its App Store, according to people familiar with the matter. Apple employees have expressed concerns about how the rules will be enforced and how this will affect its users.
China's move to restrict such apps would close a loophole in the "Great Firewall of China" that has allowed Chinese iPhone users to download popular western social media apps such as Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, YouTube and WhatsApp.
While China has blocked Internet access to these sites for years, iPhone users who download these services can access the platforms if they sign in through a virtual private network, or VPN. VPNS help them connect to web servers outside the country. Although China bans the use of unauthorized VPNS, many mobile phone users, especially young people, still do.
The five social media apps have been downloaded more than 170 million times in China over the past decade, according to estimates by Sensor Tower, a market insights firm. Protests against coronavirus prevention measures broke out in China late last year, with information and videos circulating on platforms such as X.
According to new rules issued by China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in July, Apple Inc. will no longer be able to list such apps in its Chinese app store by July next year unless the app operators file with Chinese authorities.


Apple had previously removed apps from its Chinese app store in accordance with Chinese regulations.

The operators of such apps are unlikely to file with the Chinese government, analysts say, because if they do, they may have to comply with Chinese data transfer and censorship requirements, so Apple may have no choice but to remove such apps or face legal penalties.
Apple declined to comment. Neither the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology nor the Cyberspace Administration of China responded to requests for comment.