Apple and FBI are to confront each other in court later this month over whether the tech giant should comply to the later to create a solution to crack an encrypted iPhone. It's a case of importance not only to US national security and privacy of the American consumers, but also the interests of Apple customers around the world. 

On the surface, the demand by the FBI seems reasonable and should overwhelm any possible counter argument. What it asks is to hack into a single device belonging to the dead terrorist Syed Farook, who swore loyalty to the Islamic State and, together with his wife, killed 14 people in California late last year.

The request is about national security, which requires cooperation from everybody, including tech firms like Apple. 

But it's wrong for the FBI to call its request a one-off solution. It asks Apple to write a software that will bypass the auto-erase security function in Farook's iPhone. The key here is, if the software works on this particular device, then it will work on all other iPhones. IPhone owners, therefore, will be put in danger of exposing their personal data to the US government.

In a powerful self-defense, Apple CEO Tim Cook writes, "The government is asking Apple to hack our own users and undermine decades of security advancements that protect our customers." From the view of technology, the FBI demand definitely sounds unreasonable. A thorough investigation of Farook's motives and connections is of no insignificance. But can urgency overrun reason? 

That may also explain why nearly all the big tech firms choose to side with Apple in its standoff with the government. If the world's largest IT company lost the case, those tech firms will find personal safety a tough selling point for their products.

If Apple yields to the demand of the FBI, what if other governments put forward similar requests? Should it cooperate or not? Submission to the FBI would set up a bad precedent of tech firms becoming accomplices of the government to break into citizens' privacy. In that case, where's the bottom line for Apple and the others to say no to the government?

There're other factors that are prompting Apple to confront the US government and prevent its security features from being compromised. What happens in the US doesn't always stay inside the country. As Apple's overseas markets continue to grow, there are legitimate security concerns from the customers in those markets, which need to be taken into consideration.

For example, China has, since early last year, overtaken the US to become the largest iPhone market in the world. Apple has just launched its mobile payment system, Apple Pay, in the Chinese market, where a total of 358 million people use their mobile phones to purchase goods and services. The security of those iPhone users can't be ignored. 

You don't need to go far to infer what could happen to Apple if it yields to the FBI. Some of US tech companies suffered tremendous losses in overseas businesses in the wake of NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden's revelation of their cooperation with the NSA. Apple has too much at stake, both in technology and business interests, to give in to the demands of the FBI.

The author is a commentator on current affairs with China Radio International. He is now a visiting scholar at the University of Melbourne. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn