Or what? A physical presence is one of the only leverage points they'd have over you. If you don't accede to that, what are they going to do?

Obviously I'm describing a much different tack than Google and Apple have chosen, and switching between the two isn't easy. But the point is that Google and Apple could have set themselves up this way, likely with the full blessing of the State Department. They chose not to and now predictably find themselves being used to implement totalitarianism.

Their situation is a bit stickier being hardware brands, but that just illustrates why they shouldn't have built in digital restrictions to their devices. I doubt Asus is finding themselves under such pressure, because they simply don't have the technical capability to control what users run on their computers.