Actually, it's both. Back in 2022, you have to install either WeChat or Alipay to scan the government's health code literally everywhere.

hmm, i forgot about those. but i wonder if you really needed wechat and if it wasn't possible to scan them with the government provided app that tracks your healthcode too. i think offering wechat support was more out of convenience, and not to push people to use wechat.

The app is obviously incredibly popular, but if it wasn’t back by the Chinese government I imagine apple would have enforced their App Store rules.

I imagine some kind of deal along the lines of “no WeChat no iPhone in China” was done.

seriously, you underestimate the popularity of wechat. no deal is needed because it is easy to see that an iphone without wechat just would not sell!

then they could simply just enable it in China and not in the US