A few things to keep in mind:

The people complaining about Apple's treatment of them may not be the pirates. (Keep in mind, we have words to describe people who make assumptions about all people from a culture.)

Values vary from place to place, and they take a long time to change. It sounds like piracy is declining in China as they become more dependent upon international trade. But shifts like that take a long time because you are trying to move entire societies rather than individual people. (Also keep in mind that copyrights, patents, and trademarks probably didn't mean as much until the doors to trade opened wide.)

Finally, I wouldn't put much weight on the U.S. government's piracy watch lists. They have been known to use those watch lists to place political pressure on countries with laws that they disagree with, even though there is no reason to believe that those foreign nations have piracy rates that are higher than those in the U.S..