It's not just about Apple. Apple is still headquartered in US. Thus, it's also a moral quandary for US, because American lawmakers can make it a more stark choice for Apple: they can pass a law saying that no American company can aid and abet human rights violations. Then the choice for Apple would be to operate in China and comply with laws of China, or operate in US and comply with laws of US.
Is that too extreme? In this case, perhaps (or perhaps not!), but where is the boundary? We all remember how IBM helped implement Holocaust. I don't think anyone would argue that if someone wanted to do something like that today (say, use machine learning to identify closet atheists and gays in Saudi Arabia?), we'd just say "Oh well, they're just operating under these laws, and who are we to judge? It's all culturally relative anyway."
So, at some point we draw a line and say, "no, you can't do this, not if you want to be present in our society". Where is that line? And why shouldn't it lie at authoritarian government censoring political speech?
Is that too extreme? In this case, perhaps (or perhaps not!), but where is the boundary? We all remember how IBM helped implement Holocaust. I don't think anyone would argue that if someone wanted to do something like that today (say, use machine learning to identify closet atheists and gays in Saudi Arabia?), we'd just say "Oh well, they're just operating under these laws, and who are we to judge? It's all culturally relative anyway."
So, at some point we draw a line and say, "no, you can't do this, not if you want to be present in our society". Where is that line? And why shouldn't it lie at authoritarian government censoring political speech?