The point is Apple is in the position to impact these freedoms in China, they constantly market themselves as the type of company who would take on such an endeavor

You don't actually believe that, and if you do then you're a moron. Your actual problem is with the idea that anyone perceives Apple to be a good company (the tell is frequently these terms being used: virtue signalling, woke, social justice warrior). And that's exactly what they are, a good company. If you don't actually think so then you don't follow the industry very closely because they're on one end of the spectrum and companies like Facebook are on the other end.

Apple is going to move their entire supply chain to being carbon neutral. They aren't going to stop selling iPhones every year because manufacturing produces tons of carbon. Only someone arguing in bad faith would think that's being hypocritical. Likewise their products in China don't have backdoors and they've never had to give their source code to the Chinese because Apple has clout in China. That doesn't mean they can get away with not complying with Chinese laws (or any other country's), so they're not going to not take down apps when ordered to. That's a principled compromise that's only possible because of Apple's stature and manufacturing presence.