About 1000 other phone models not manufactured by Apple? Is it some kind of trick question that assumes Apple holds monopoly in the business of mobile/cloud and we're not aware of it? Or there's some other point here?
Everybody who operates cloud services in China is subject to these same laws. If you dump Apple over this, every other choice you have is guaranteed to be no better (and likely a hell of a lot worse) on the privacy front.
If all that matters is the phone model, then Apple is just as good since you don't need to use iCloud. If you are going to use cloud services, do you really think Google/Android is going to be better from a privacy perspective?
However other brands in China also obey the same law, that means you have to choose some brands that never have business in China, which excludes (Samsung, LG, Moto, ....)