Apple said on Friday it had removed Meta Platforms’ WhatsApp and Threads from China’s App Store following an order from the Chinese government citing national security concerns.

Two other foreign messaging apps, Telegram and Signal, were also removed from stores on Friday, according to app tracking companies Qimai and AppMagic.

The removal of the four apps shows China’s central government is becoming increasingly intolerant of at least some foreign online messaging services that it does not control. It also signals less room for maneuver for Apple in China.

Still, other Meta apps including Facebook, Instagram and Messenger are still available for download, according to a Reuters investigation on Friday. Many other popular applications developed by Western companies such as YouTube and X are also available.

It’s unclear how WhatsApp or Threads raised security concerns among Chinese authorities.

“Based on national security concerns, the Cyberspace Administration of China ordered the removal of these apps from the Chinese store,” Apple said in an emailed statement.

“We are obligated to comply with the laws of the countries in which we operate, even if we disagree,” the statement said.

Meta declined to comment and referred inquiries to Apple.

Apple did not respond to requests for comment from Signal and Telegram. Representatives for the two companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

China’s Cyberspace Administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

None of the four apps are widely used in China – Tencent’s WeChat is by far the dominant service.

These apps and many foreign apps are typically blocked on Chinese networks by the “Great Firewall” (China’s extensive web censorship system) and can only be used with virtual private networks or other proxy tools.

The four apps are still available in China’s two special administrative regions, Hong Kong and Macau.

Some experts in China’s tech industry said the government’s orders on WhatsApp and Threads may be related to a new regulation last August that required all apps available in China to register with the government or risk being deleted.

The deadline for companies to complete registration is the end of March, with the regulations taking effect on April 1.

Apple has previously removed apps from its Chinese App Store.

In 2017, Apple removed the New York Times news app, saying it violated local regulations – a move that came amid growing censorship of news in the world’s second-largest economy. It’s still not available on Apple’s China App Store.

Last year, while Beijing was developing local regulations on generating artificial intelligence (AI) services, Apple removed some apps like ChatGPT.

The Wall Street Journal first reported the removal of WhatsApp and Threads from Chinese app stores.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)