The Chinese communist regime is not characterized, as its political status indicates, for not offering many freedoms, not only to its citizens, but also to companies that want to make money. A little less than a year ago, the Chinese government published a new law in which it obliges all companies that provide their services in the country, to store all your citizens' data locally.
In the specific case of Apple, the Chinese government wants all the data of Chinese users who use iCloud to be stored exclusively in China and not outside the country. The only reason why a government may want its users' data to be stored in its own country cannot be other than wanting to have them as close as possible to be able to access them in an easier way and without raising suspicions.
Apple has been forced to create a data center in China to be able to store each and every one of the data of iCloud users in China, a data center located in Guizhou and that will start operating on February 28. Apple claims that all iCloud user data they will be protected with the same encryption that you use in all your data centers and that its internal policies prohibit you from creating back doors to access that information.
It is striking that Apple has made these statements, since as I have commented above, the only reason why the Chinese government may want the data of its citizens to be stored in the country is obvious. Keep in mind that Apple is not Tim Cook. The shareholders are the owners of Apple and Apple is a company that has to earn money, so there are times when you will be forced to look the other way, especially if we talk about China, the most important market today for any technology company.
