OTOH, my experience (modest n) is that a fairly large percentage of people are happy to say "Shame on Apple" for such things. Vs. a near-zero percentage are actually willing to avoid buying products made in (mainland) China, or with major components made there.
Talk was cheap long before "Performative Activism" had its own Wikipedia page.
>" Vs. a near-zero percentage are actually willing to avoid buying products made in (mainland) China, or with major components made there."
Personally, I make a sincere effort to buy products that aren't made in China. I've been doing this for years but unfortunately avoiding things made in China is surprisingly difficult. When I end up buying products made in China, it isn't because of a lack of conviction, it is because there was no alternative I could find.
So OP can't shame Apple for this moral behavior because others buy Apple's product?
Would you apply that same standard and does it hold up to other scenarios?
If people were buying textile products from the slave trade, would you say "perhaps" when other (or the same) people shamed those industries for supporting slave labor?
If people were buying nuts and fruit from exploited migrant workers, would you still be able to shame the industries for better conditions or to hire minimal wage workers?
If people were buying cobalt or lithium mined from child slaves would you be able to shame those industries into sourcing minerals in a more humane way even though people buy EVs?
Or because people bought those products those companies/industries have immunity from criticism?
You cannot avoid products made in China because of the current status quo for the same reasons you couldn't avoid textiles made with slave cotton.
That doesn't mean you can't advocate change to the status quo.
OP is free to say "Shame on Apple", boycott Apple, and publicly pray for the gods to smite Apple from On High. If OP's actual interest is in discouraging such corporate behavior, then only the second of those options seems likely to accomplish anything.
Re: Cotton - even if every ill-treated cotton worker suddenly became a well-treated union member, there's still the huge moral problem of how much of the Earth's scarce fresh water and farmland are devoted to growing cotton - when millions of poor people face grim shortages of food and safe water. I admit that being an old geezer makes it easier, but my approach is to buy far fewer new clothes & textile products than the average American. That strategy completely fails to grant me 100% moral purity on the issue. OTOH, it does far more good than fashionable kids decrying the deplorable status quo.
OTOH, my experience (modest n) is that a fairly large percentage of people are happy to say "Shame on Apple" for such things. Vs. a near-zero percentage are actually willing to avoid buying products made in (mainland) China, or with major components made there.
Talk was cheap long before "Performative Activism" had its own Wikipedia page.