The China People’s Daily, controlled by the Communist Party, used its front page to slam Apple’s customer-services.

It seems that the Communist Party has just worked out that Apple is probably one of those weird religions that it does not want to have around. The company was recently outted in a television documentary which showed how bad the Chinese version of customer service was in comparison to other parts of the world.

Apple fanboys rushed to the Internet to play down the rumour and attack the television programme for daring to discredit Apple. The complaints focused on a “celebrity conspiracy” was organised to post comments criticising Apple on the Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter. By the time the dust had settled people had largely forgotten what the program was about. So it seems that the People’s Daily needed to remind workers how bad Apple was.

The People’s Daily article appeared to be channelling something I might have written. It accused Apple of an “empty and self-praising” response to an earlier critical report on the company by China’s state broadcaster. The People’s Daily article was accompanied by a cartoon that showed a figure supposed to represent the US company saying: “Apple statement: empty.”

The Tame Apple press says that the reason that the Chinese authorities are pressing the situation is because they want to create market which is less dependent on foreign companies. It is rubbish of course, but they are certainly worried about the number of kids who are flogging their kidneys to get an overpriced phone.