Apple urged suppliers in Taiwan to strictly follow Chinese custom laws and label products as ‘Made in China’.
According to Nikkei Asia’s report, the company asked manufacturers on Friday to comply with a long-established but unenforced regulation.
Apple wants Taiwan to use ‘Made in China’ label to comply with custom laws
The custom law states that shipment from Taiwan should show that the island is part of the People’s Republic of China. Taiwan should either label the Taiwanese-made products as made in “Taiwan, China” or “Chinese Taipei.”
The move comes after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s recent visit to Taiwan. The enforcement of the regulation is to prevent disruption from rigid Chinese custom inspections that began after Pelosi’s visit.
The U.S tech giant urged suppliers to take the matter seriously. This would help avoid any delays due to the goods held for inspection by customs.
Apple is focusing on urgency as it awaits components from suppliers. The components and parts will go into the manufacturer of its iPhones and other products to release this year.
Criticism of Apple’s decision
Apple’s decision has led to criticism as they gave no choice to suppliers who view Taiwan as an independent country. There was no option given by Apple to Taiwan suppliers to opt out of putting ‘Made in China’ label on their goods.
An organization called GreatFire, which works against Chinese online censorship shared its opinion.
It said that the move was a step ahead of Apple’s previous slight. Apple had removed the Taiwan flag from its emoji keyboards for users in Hong Kong and China.
“Is it a question of time before Apple starts removing apps whose name contains the characters [for] Taiwan without specifying ‘province of China?,” GreatFire asked.
“Unfortunately, we suspect that Apple’s ‘red-line’, the moment where it will say: ‘Stop, no longer, we cannot continue to collaborate with the Chinese regime and enforce its requests for censorship,’ is nowhere close,” Benjamin Ismail from GreatFire told the Register news site.
Apple did not give their comment when asked by Nikkei Asia.
