>Apple has leverage....

Yes, so much leverage that China regularly forces them to censor the App Store, and forced them to give up control of iCloud in China.

Quite different than say, how Apple handled the FBI demands or AT&T?

What concessions did Apple extract from China with respect to freedom or privacy for the Chinese people that you can point to?

Have they ever gotten VPN reinstated? Can you point to a single instance of Apple even petitioning against the government in Chinese courts?

I’ll go one better: can you find an instance on record of Apple executives like Tim Cook criticizing Chinese government policies like they do the US government? Any instance of push back at all?