Will Apple be the last US tech giant left in China?

There was a time when the US tech giants were all in China - even Facebook. Today, Apple's huge presence in the country looks increasingly conspicuous.

Last week Microsoft, which still operates in China, announced it was to shut down its social network, LinkedIn, there.

The company said having to comply with the Chinese state had become increasingly challenging - so it pulled the plug.

Apple has its own censorship problems in the country.

The BBC reported last week that two popular religious apps had been removed from Apple's App Store.

It later emerged that Amazon-owned Audible and the Yahoo Finance app had also been taken down.

Apple Censorship, a group that monitors the App Store, says it has seen an increase in apps that have been removed this month.

So what is going on?

The great tech crackdown

It is notoriously hard to gauge what's happening behind closed doors in Beijing.

Still, what is becoming increasingly clear is that Apple and Microsoft are embroiled in a domestic battle between the authorities and the Chinese tech industry.

China has its own big tech titans - Tencent, Alibaba and Huawei - that are enormous global companies. But the Chinese government has grown worried about the power they wield.

Source BBC