Last week, both iTunes Movies and the iBooks Store mysteriously stopped serving in China. Now we know thanks to a new New York Times report which reveals that the respective Stores were forced to "close" by a request from the Chinese Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television Administration.
Initially, Apple apparently had the approval of the Chinese government to introduce its services. But then one of the regulatory agencies, the aforementioned State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television, reaffirmed its authority and demanded both closures, according to two people who spoke on condition of anonymity.
After the closure of the two stores, the President of China, Xi Jinping, has met with the managers of various companies to discuss their restrictive policiesSuch as Jack Ma from Alibaba or ten Zhengfei from Huawei. A firm specialized in Chinese economics indicates that this movement may respond to a clear orientation from the Chinese government to promote technology from the country and limit the scope of action of foreign companies.
For this reason, an Apple spokesperson has already come to the fore confirming the following:
Apple expects to get both the bookstores and movies tailored for our customers back up and running in China as soon as possible.
Store closures they come six months later of its launch with Apple Music in the country. In addition to Apple's foray into China, Apple Pay was also recently introduced in partnership with UnionPay, a state-owned interbank network in China.
In any case, it is not something that seems strange to me, since the restrictive information policies that have been applied for a long time in China, have made the content offered by these stores was out of the "script"Hopefully it won't take long for them to be available again and that Chinese users can continue to enjoy content as varied as that offered by Apple, although I believe that a very important screening will be carried out on such content.