> China could compel their Apple manufacturing staff to install a back-doored chip into Apple devices on the production line. Seems reasonable if the US government is asking for a software back door into all phones.

Wouldn't that be opening a whole different can of international worms? In this hypothetical,

- Is China doing this with or without Apple's knowledge?

- If not, then it's a very very different situation than the US. I wouldn't equate them at all in such a case.

- If so, then Apple presumably would openly fight this and could even move all of their production outside of China as an extreme last resort. Against the US government, they don't have such a last resort situation since the company is based in the US. And unless every essential employee is a non-US citizen, then Apple has no such last resort. Hence why I am asking my original question of what international laws come into play here?

> - Is China doing this with or without Apple's knowledge?

In this hypothetical, sure. The Chinese govt orders Apple to install a backdoor chip on the production line.

> - If so, then Apple presumably would openly fight this and could even move all of their production outside of China as an extreme last resort.

Moving their production doesn't seem to be more or less difficult than moving their corporate HQ.

Production lines can be moved to other factories at great cost, but the labor is replaceable. Convincing your entire US living (mostly citizens) engineering staff to live/work outside the US would be much harder. You can have them telecommute but there is no way that the company would run anywhere near as well as it did prior.

Unless there is something in US law that says you can reincorporate outside the US, keep an office in the US, and yet somehow be excluded from US jurisdiction. Cause from what I understand, if you have an office in some country, you are bound to those laws to some degree.