Yes, and faced with the option of making money in China and eliminating any and all user privacy, or not making money in China, Apple chose the former.
Comparing following laws in a country with willingly compromising privacy in a country that does not compel the company to do it is some serious false equivalence.
No, willingly entering and operating in a country where you know you will have to compromise on privacy is putting profits ahead of privacy.
Take the Google/China situation. If Google entered China and handed over all info on Chinese users to the government, it would be doing exactly the same that Apple does now.
Just like other companies, Apple cares more about profits than privacy, so it will operate in China for the profits, even if it has to infringe on the privacy of every single user there.
