Translation
When Tim Cook says "We strongly believe that participating in markets and bringing benefits to customers is in the best interest of the folks there and in other countries as well" he must think we are all daft. Apple took a pragmatic decision to remove VPN's in China because failure to do so would have affected their bottom line - China may have taken more destructive action if Apple did not comply.
I do not know which is more deplorable - China's repressive regime or Apple's "only doing it for the customer" bullsh*t. I suppose China is slightly more open about being a sh*t.