Cook, of course, is clearly aware of thiswhich is why he mentioned Apple would have no choice but to comply with a US censorship regime, too. Hes not exactly wrong. But its also a reminder of how any abuse of power requires enablers, and institutions whose bottom line rely on compliance are probably not going to save anyone from autocracy. With a few exceptions, theyll usually comply. Elsewhere during the call, Cook noted, mainland China sales are doing just fine. Last week, consumer tech giant Apple removed all major VPN apps from the Chinese branch of its Apps Store, seemingly putting yet another barrier in place for millions. The companys poor performance was mostly due to poor sales in the mostly autonomous region of Hong Kong, which has much less restrictive laws on censorship.