China Drops Apple From Approved Tech List

Some of the world's leading technology brands - including Apple and Intel - have been dropped from China's approved purchasing lists.

Government departments can buy products only from a list of approved companies, which has now been stacked with thousands of products from local firms.

The main casualty is US network equipment maker Cisco Systems which had 60 products on the list in 2012, but now has none.

All Apple, Intel, Citrix and McAfee products have also been dropped over the same period.

Some have suggested that the move is a response to Western cyber-surveillance revelations.

But others have put the shift down to an attempt to shield China's domestic technology industry from competition.

The number of products on the list has risen by more than 2,000 in two years to close to 5,000, but the increase is almost entirely due to local products.

A spokesman for the US State Department said it was "very concerned that many aspects of China's recent regulatory actions - touted as means to bolster cyber security - are neither effective cyber security measures nor consistent with the principles of free and open trade".

The approved list does not apply to local government bodies or state-owned companies, or the military which has its own separate procurement process.

Last month US technology industry groups wrote to the Chinese administration to complain about new cyber security regulations.

Some of the regulations force companies who sell to Chinese banks to hand over secret source code and use Chinese encryption algorithms.