Corporatism and fascism are two sides of the same coin
Apple has removed WhatsApp and Threads from its app store in China, following an order from the country's internet watchdog which cited national security concerns.
Juliana Liu at CNN
Over the recent months, as Apple had to change some of its business practices to comply with the European Union's new Digital Markets Act, a still-ongoing process, Apple fans, spearheaded by John Gruber, have pushed Apple to leave the European Union. They argue that the minor inconvenience of complying with some basic consumer and market protection laws is too great of a deeply unfair financial sacrifice, and that leaving the EU makes more sense. Gruber also goes to bat hard for poor Facebook, arguing that company should leave the EU, too, over the DMA demanding Facebook respects users' privacy. Apple itself, too, has been harshly attacking the European Union aggressively in the media.
So anyway, today, Apple did what it has been doing for a very long time: bending over backwards for the totalitarian, genocidal regime in China. China tells Apple to remove applications, Apple complies. Every other of the sixteen hundred times Apple has complied with this horrible regime's demands, Gruber always argued that all poor Apple can do is comply with local Chinese laws and demands, as leaving China over principles and morals would benefit nobody.
So, we're left with the rather peculiar situation where the response to some relatively minor consumer and market protection regulations is one of deep hostility, both from Apple as well as its PR attack dogs, whereas the response to the demands from one of the most brutal, totalitarian, genocidal regimes in human history is one of that's life". Such is the way of the Apple corporatist: a democratically drawn up and widely popular law enacted by an incredibly popular government that causes some mild inconvenience for Apple is vilified with populist and nationalist anti-EU rhetoric, while the undemocratic, totalitarian decrees from a vicious genocidal dictator are met with effectively disinterested shrugs since those decrees don't really inconvenience Apple.
Corporatism and fascism are two sides of the same coin, from early 20th century Europe, through mid-20th century United States, to the megacorporations of today.
Despite yet another decree from China that goes far further in nature than anything the DMA demands, we won't be seeing any pushes from the Grubers of this world for Apple to leave China. We won't be seeing copious amounts of malicious compliance from Apple. We won't be treated to lengthy diatribes from Apple executives about how much they despise China and Chinese laws. All because China's demands don't harm Apple's bottom line, but the DMA might.
And for the corporatist, praying at the altar of money, the former is irrelevant, while the latter is sacrilege.