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Not really, it's just tit-for-tat because Western governments banned use of phones from Chinese companies such as Huawei. It's the same game we've been playing for years.

Then they should have banned iPhone sales across China, as the US did with Huawei.

The public ban will also come in due time. Probably when the US carries out another equipment ban against China. This is a way to manage public perceptions.

I'd doubt it. Apple regularly provides the Chinese government with device data[0], and iCloud data is already stored in state-owned[1] servers. I struggle to imagine what more surveillance you could ask for.

[0] https://www.apple.com/legal/transparency/cn.html

[1] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208351

I think MDM systems enable governments to track quite a bit these days.

I think the real issue probably is somewhere between retaliation and the desire to support a domestic competitor. China has long had a view that it can't be reliant on a foreign company and that's especially true for the tech sector.

It's got backdoors, just not to the places they want it going to.