Censorship, surveillance and profits: A hard bargain for Apple in China

On the outskirts of this city in a poor, mountainous province in southwestern China, men in hard hats recently put the finishing touches on a white building a quarter-mile long with few wind­ows and a tall surrounding wall. There was little sign of its purpose, apart from the flags of Apple and China flying out front, side by side. Inside, Apple was preparing to store the personal data of its Chinese custo­mers on computer servers run by a state-owned Chinese firm.

Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, has said the data is safe. But at the data center in Guiyang, which Apple hoped would be completed by next month, and another in the Inner Mongolia region, Apple has largely ceded control to the Chinese government.