Tim Cook is desperate to hold onto any remaining scraps of the China market. That's a boon for the country's model for the internet, and the local players who dominate.

The Apple Inc. CEO, who last year stood up to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, took to the stage at China's annual internet conference this past weekend to kiss the ring and give his seal of approval for the way the government there tightly controls the flow of information.

"The theme of this conference -- developing a digital economy for openness and shared benefits -- is a vision we at Apple share," Cook said. "We are proud to have worked alongside many of our partners in China to help build a community that will join a common future in cyberspace."

Ren Zhengfei, Robin Li and Pony Ma ought to have been grinning like Cheshire cats. The chiefs of Huawei Technologies Co. 1 , Baidu Inc. and Tencent Holdings Ltd. have been great beneficiaries of Chinese censorship. Restricting the flow of information, you see, has worked out to be a handy little tool of trade protectionism.