China is widening its ban on the iPhone in central government agency offices and is telling employees to use locally-made phones.
In September, the Wall Street Journal reported that China’s central government agencies were banning workers from bringing their iPhones into the office and forbidding them from using the device for work-related calls and tasks. The story was published just days after Chinese manufacturer Huawei stunned the world by announcing the Mate 60 Pro, the first phone launched by Huawei with a homemade 5G Kirin chipset in three years due to the U.S. sanctions against the company.
While the original iPhone ban was limited to employees of government agencies in Beijing and Tianjin, a new report by Bloomberg claims that China has widened the breadth of the ban in what is being described as “a major step-up.” Now, government agencies in eight or more additional provinces have banned the iPhone from both the office and from being used by employees for official business.
