While "the silence was deafening" is an often overused turn of phrase, it is fitting for Apple Inc. CEO Tim Cook's silence when asked about he and his company's (lack of) statements about — and dealings with — China and its genocidal communist government.
Fox News’ Hillary Vaughn caught up with Cook in the halls of Capitol Hill on Thursday amid the tech CEO's meetings with lawmakers ahead of the new Congress, and asked him a series of questions to which Cook uttered nary a "hmph" in response.
Watch:
🚨WATCH: Apple CEO Tim Cook ignores our questions on China as zero-COVID lockdown protests rage in the country. Full video 👇🏻 pic.twitter.com/m0NpgRN6U4
— Hillary Vaughn (@hillary__vaughn) December 1, 2022
Really? Not even some corporate and politically correct sanitized statement? Not some weak proclamation like the White House has peddled about "the right to protest" or general comment about the importance of human rights? Nope.
A transcript of the interaction drives home just how deafening — not to mention damning — Cook's silence was:
VAUGHN: Hi, Mr. Cook. Do you support the Chinese people's right to protest?
*TIM COOK SILENT*
VAUGHN: Do you have any reaction to the factory workers that were beaten and detained for protesting COVID lockdowns?
*TIM COOK SILENT*
VAUGHN: Do you regret restricting AirDrop access that protesters used to evade surveillance from the Chinese government?
*TIM COOK SILENT*
VAUGHN: Do you think it's problematic to do business with the Communist Chinese Party when they suppress human rights?
*TIM COOK SILENT*
Hoo-boy. It's not too often that a reporter is able to tell an entire story without having their subject say a word, yet that's exactly what Vaughn did this week with Cook. And while it's impossible to know why exactly Cook chose to let silence be his position, if he was hoping being unresponsive would snuff out interest in Apple's dealings with China, he clearly thought wrong.
As Townhall reported earlier this week, Apple recently pushed an update to its iOS operating system that runs on iPhones, and didn't mention in the update's release notes that iPhones in mainland China would have their ability to use AirDrop restricted.
That feature, which allows direct device-to-device transfers of files and data, had been widely used by dissidents in China protesting the CCP's "zero-COVID" policies because it circumvents the despotic government's surveillance and censorship of the internet and social media communication platforms.
Apple's update for iPhones in China, while we don't know if it came at the request of the Chinese government, was a massive blow to the freedom fighters protesting in China and a tremendous gift to the CCP's campaign to crack down on the uprising and silence dissent.
Yet Apple's CEO didn't have a word to say about it or the company's position toward the protests or tyranny of the CCP. As was also noted this week, Cook's silence is a significant departure from his previous statements on other protests.