Tech companies like Apple and Google have long been resisting the request of the United States to create 'backdoors" into their products.

This is to allow the American intelligence community to gain  access to customers' communications. And yet in the past weeks, Apple may have given in to a similar plea from China.

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Since last year, China has been preparing its first counter-terrorism law. This is meant to give the Chinese government easy access to communications inside the country and overseas.

The measure requires technology firms to censor terrorism-related messages. It also mandates tech companies should keep all servers and use data within China.

The bill also orders tech companies to provide government with encryption keys to access communications.

U.S. President Barack Obama summarizes the role technology companies will play in China, once its law against terrorism is passed:

"The law will essentially force all foreign companies, including the U.S. firms, to turn over to the Chinese government all mechanisms where they can snoop and keep track of all the users of those services."

Obama made this analysis in an interview with Reuters on Monday. He further said, "as you might imagine, tech companies are not going to be willing to do that."

But there are speculations some American firms may have already caved in to China's request.

Last year, Apple started to store data from Chinese iPhone users within the country.This move made other companies suspect Apple could already be helping in Chinese government surveillance.

They also say, Apple could already be partially complying with China's guidelines.

Apple, however, denied this. It told Newsweek, "Apple takes user security and privacy very seriously."

It also explained the nature of its work with China Telecom.

"We have added China Telecom to our list of data center providers to increase bandwith and improve performance for our customers in Mainland China," the tech firm said.

But Apple also guaranteed that all their data stored with their providers are encrypted, and China Telecom does not have access to the content.

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