Transit Jam goes to the Ombudsman’s Office HQ to view a document that would until recently have been available online. Everything is as difficult as you would expect – from booking ahead to negotiating the Shun Tak Centre to reading documents while staff linger outside the room. Almost as if they don’t want anyone to see their archives.
Asia Times on Apple’s boss and China…
…Cook sold Apple’s soul to China.
He deepened the company’s dependency on a regime that censors dissent, surveils its citizens, and threatens global security—all because the margins looked good.
He didn’t just outsource production. He outsourced principle. While Musk battled regulators and Zuckerberg sparred with Congress, Cook was quietly bending the knee to Beijing, deleting apps, filtering maps and making sure nothing upset the Politburo.
His legacy isn’t one of innovation or bravery—it’s of appeasement in pursuit of profit…
From Chinadiction, reviews of two books on Taiwan. One tries to clear up Formosa’s often-misunderstood past…
…the tribal histories that preceded and coexisted with the Dutch, the Spanish, the Ming refugees, the ascendant Qing Dynasty Manchus who semi-managed western coastal Taiwan until the arrival of the Japanese in 1895 – and after them the en-masse arrival of the defeated Chinese Nationalists (Kuomintang, or KMT) in 1949.
The other looks at the possibility of a war…
…despite all the rehearsals and incessant training, taking Taiwan is a toweringly tall order for an untested military such as China’s especially as modern warfare changes before our eyes. Hopefully, the best deterrence of all – as Xi continues to purge PLA generals, reportedly for corruption and “violating political discipline” – is China itself.
‘His legacy isn’t one of innovation or bravery—it’s of appeasement in pursuit of profit’
This is the very definition of Corporation business :
https://a.co/d/6J0jpgi
It’s worse than the Asia times supposes, if Patrick McGee is to be believed. He posits that Apple essentially built China. It’s a little hyperbolic, as Taiwan, Hong Kong and a myriad other companies were involved along the way, but it is a good case study.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAj9zB4vaZc
And it’s particularly odd that Asia times for some reason thinks Musk and Zuckerberg aren’t “quietly bending the knee to Beijing”. Because current events suggests differently.
“Former Meta executive Sarah Wynn-Williams accused the company of secretly collaborating with the Chinese government on AI and censorship, then lying to Congress. Testifying before the US Senate, she claimed Facebook aided Beijing’s censorship efforts.” —AFP, Apr 10, 2025
“Since its opening in 2019, the Shanghai plant has surpassed Tesla’s Fremont, California, facility in both size and productivity, now accounting for more than half of the company’s global deliveries and a majority of its profits.” — How Elon Musk’s deep ties to – and admiration for – China could complicate Trump’s Beijing policy, The Conversation, by Lingong Kong, Feb 24, 2025
McGee makes a compelling case and sells his story convincingly.
It’s common knowledge for the last 15 years or so Mark Zuckerberg would sell his favourite child to get facebook into the mainland market. Similarly Elon Musk has the CCP’s hooks embedded into him very deeply due to his car company’s dependence on China as its second largest market and the vulnerability of his assets there to ‘political factors’
Silly Knees-Bent and everyone else are absolutely right. Tim Cook is corrupt and fundamentally evil, but no more so than Zuck, Elmo, Bezos, and every other one of those oligarch vampires who stood around kissing FDT’s ass at the inauguration.
That the author of the article is able to make allowances for any of these creeps destroys his credibility.