Kicked and dragged for taking photos of a Foxconn plant from a public road in China

Foxconn's Guanlan factory. Credit: REUTERS/James Pomfret

Reuters' report Wednesday about the lengths to which Apple (AAPL) and its suppliers will go to guard Steve Jobs' secrets has everything: metal detectors, fingerprint scanners, product head-fakes, lawsuits, multimillion-dollar fines, a suicide, and employees afraid to breathe a word about what they do, even to their wives.

But the highpoint of the piece is a confrontation that took place outside one of the Chinese factories of Hon Hai Precision Instruments (trade name: Foxconn), the crown jewel of Apple's far eastern supply chain. It starts with a tip:

Tipped by a worker outside the Longhua complex that a nearby Foxconn plant was manufacturing parts for Apple too, our correspondent hopped in a taxi for a visit to the facility in Guanlan, which makes products for a range of companies.

As he stood on the public road taking photos of the front gate and security checkpoint, a guard shouted. The reporter continued snapping photos before jumping into a waiting taxi. The guard blocked the vehicle and ordered the driver to stop, threatening to strip him of his taxi license.

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