[bilbo0s]

>Even in mainland China [..] Apple does not pre-install any apps from anyone.

That's because China has no regulation obliging them to do so.

China takes the other, more comprehensive, route to privacy invasion. Sucking up every bit of data at the router.

[iancarroll]

The GFW is certainly looking for traffic to block, but it is not really going to invade much privacy, as it cannot decrypt anything using HTTPS/TLS.

[largbae]

GFW does indeed have man in the middle capabilities per the recent leaks of Geedge tech used in it. Your laptop might throw a warning for the fake signed cert, but devices in China that trust Chinese root CAs would not.