The degree that China goes to censor things reminds me of kindergarten. Pull the shades down, and kids won't want to go outside? Is it simply a reminder to their people of who's in charge, at this level of pettiness?
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This seems to suggest the populace is at fault, wanting and buying cheap gadgets no matter what the consequences are?
In truth, I think most people are simply unaware of the many problems caused both by consumerism, and the moral spinelessness of pretty much all large corporations and how that is brought about by market forces. Even in politics I'd say that there is, besides some malfeasance, also limited understanding of complicated issues. (Remember the congressman asking Zuckerberg how Facebook made any money?)
If they weren't struggling to get by on the wages they make, they could afford to be a little more picky about what they buy and how it's created.
Are you getting that because of this flag issue or is there more behind that? I would argue that Apple is, by far, the more ethical option.
From Apple's historically more oppressive stance against freedom of expression in their own wallet garden, and the recent actions against the HK protest movement ("legitimate" app ban, the present article), my opinion is that Apple is a less ethical choice than Android which is more permissive and respectful of user freedom.
I would love to see how you justify Apple's actions as "historically oppressive" when it comes to App Store rejections. Even the case that you specify in Hong Kong wasn't Apple's actions "against the HK protest movement". The App was rejected initially because it was thought to violate specific terms and it was appealed and approved within days. To try and frame that as Apple being morally or ethically deficient is really, really disingenuous.
The opposite side is that Apple is the only company that's not actively selling user data and/or using it against users. Android may be more permissive from a general standpoint but even that comes at the huge, huge cost of a lack of privacy and a completely lack of concern for personal freedom. Even from a security standpoint, I would argue that Google is less ethical simply because they don't act on nefarious actors that they know about. Being permissive isn't the same thing as being ethical.