Chinese Communist Party

"CSR in the Chinese context has been a top-down project in which companies support the political agenda of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and government, including poverty reduction (which strengthens party legitimacy), environmental protection (which seemingly has become a personal preference of China’s paramount leader Xi Jinping), and the CCP’s goal of ‘national rejuvenation.’"

"The situation escalated until, after eleven p.m., central authorities in Beijing called in an elite special unit of police—100 guys wearing all black with expressionless faces that, according to a person present, handled security for senior members of the Chinese Communist Party. Another person present called them “the SWAT team.” This elite unit directed Apple store managers to cut the security cameras, cordon off the staff, and isolate the whole area. The black-clad cops told the villagers: “You’re either going to leave voluntarily or leave in body bags.” As the size of the crowd dwindled to under 1,500, a young female villager pulled out her smartphone to snap a photo. A member of the elite unit of enforcers knocked her on the floor, grabbed her by the scalp, and dragged her behind the Genius Bar. “They beat her pretty badly,” says a person present. Fourteen years after the episode, he still has nightmares about it. “She was screaming in pain.” For the next forty-five minutes the other villagers were beaten one by one. Part of the tiled floor was left so bloodstained that Apple had to replace the stones. Employees present had their phones wiped. No record of the event exists. “It shows you how quickly the Chinese can brush everything under the carpet,” says a person present. “It was like a mini–Tiananmen Square.”"

"One episode demonstrating Xi’s hold over the party was captured on film. As Xi was poised to accept a third term as China’s ruler, his predecessor, Hu Jintao, was sitting right next to him at the 20th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, on October 22, 2022. When seventy-nine-year-old Hu reached for a red folder in front of him, another Chinese official removed it from his grasp. When Hu again attempted to grab it, Xi signaled to an aide, issued a command, and within seconds two aides lifted Hu by the armpit and escorted him out. As China journalist James Kynge writes: “As Hu was hustled out, none of a seated row of top officials even so much as turned to wish him well. They stared straight ahead, studiously ignoring his humiliation.” Inside the envelope, some experts believe, was a dossier that would have demonstrated that Hu’s key protégé wasn’t being elevated to the seven-member Politburo—the highest organ of the Central Committee. Xi had stacked the Politburo with allies, consolidated more power than any Chinese leader since Mao, and was set to rule for life."

"In the words of Democrat Mark Warner, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, removing AirDrop was tantamount to “doing the bidding” of the Chinese Communist Party."