[minsc__and__boo]

Hyperbole.

Being a separate device, as you said, means the phones would still work independent of Apple.

The Chinese government would block updates and sales, hencecustomers would blame them, not Apple, because Apple was incentivized with customers instead of the government moving forward.

[kube-system]

Basically everyone with an iPhone uses an Apple ID. It is certainly not hyperbole that the devices usability would be very severely impacted without access to Apple's servers.

[minsc__and__boo]

They would lose iCloud access. That's what the Chinese Government threatened them with.

It is not "bricking phones" as you said. As much as you don't like this fact, Apple had a choice and decided to put the Chinese government before it's users.

[kube-system]

Yes, it is.

An iPhone that cannot connect to Apple’s servers is essentially bricked. Not only do a significant number of critical features on the phone require reaching out to Apple to function, but IIRC, after a certain period of time without being able to contact Apple, the phone will require you to log in with your Apple ID. I believe this is to prevent activation lock bypasses by blocking network resources.

I remember reading about an issue a while back, where a person got locked out of their phone at sea, because they didn’t have network access for an extended period of time.

[minsc__and__boo]

So then Apple pushes an quick update to disable login after N days.

You're splitting hairs here about Apple choosing to share their user data with the Chinese government over their user's privacy.