HONG KONG—The high-profile attendance of the leaders of Apple and Google at a Chinese conference promoting Beijing’s vision of a censored internet highlights the dilemma for Western tech companies trying to expand in an increasingly lucrative, but restricted, market. The event in Wuzhen, a historic canal town outside Shanghai, marked the first time chiefs of two of the world’s biggest tech companies have attended the annual state-run World Internet Conference. It has been criticized by some app developers for complying with Chinese censorship demands. One such company, ExpressVPN, said Apple was “aiding China’s censorship effort.” Apple said that China began requiring this year that developers of virtual private networks have a government license. Google shut the Chinese version of its search engine in 2010 over censorship concerns.

Source: thestar December 04, 2017 20:37 UTC