Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) executives held meetings with Chinese officials in recent months to address concerns related to new regulations that will restrict the company from offering numerous foreign apps currently available on its iPhone app store in China, the Wall Street Journal reported today.
Officials conveyed to Apple the necessity of enforcing rules that prohibit unregistered foreign apps. Apple employees expressed apprehension about the potential impact of these rules on its user base.
China's intent to restrict these apps is aimed at closing a loophole in its Great Firewall that enables Chinese iPhone users to download popular Western social media apps like Instagram, X (formerly known as Twitter), Facebook, YouTube, and WhatsApp.
Although China has blocked web access to these platforms for years, users can access them through their apps when using a virtual private network (VPN) to connect to servers outside the country, despite China's ban on unauthorized VPNs.
These five social media apps have collectively been downloaded more than 170 million times in China through Apple's app store in the past decade, according to estimates by Sensor Tower.
Under new rules issued by China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in July, Apple will no longer be able to offer such apps in its China app store after next July unless the app operators are registered with the government.