Apple removed an app late Wednesday that allowed protesters in Hong Kong to follow police, a day after facing fierce criticism from Chinese state media that allowed the technology giant to delve deeper into the complicated politics of a country fundamental to its business.

Apple said it withdrew the app HKmap.live from its App Store just days after approval because authorities in Hong Kong said protesters used it to attack police in the semiautonomous city.

A day earlier, People’s Daily, the flagship newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, published an editorial accusing Apple of helping “rioters” in Hong Kong. “Giving toxic software its meaning is a betrayal of the feelings of the Chinese people,” said the article, written under a pseudonym that translates to “Calming the Waves.”

Timothy D. Cook, Apple’s chief executive, said in an email to employees Thursday that the company had removed the app after receiving “credible information” from authorities and people in Hong Kong “that the app was maliciously used to target individual officers for violence and to victimize individuals and property where no police are present.” As a result, he said, the app violated Apple rules and local laws.

“National and international debates will outlive us all, and while important, they do not control the facts,” he said in the letter reviewed by The New York Times. “In this case, we have thoroughly reviewed them, and we believe this decision best protects our users.”

With its reversal, Apple joined a growing list of companies trying to navigate the fraught political situation between China and Hong Kong, where anti-government protests have been taking place for months.

That minefield was evident this week when a director of the N.B.A.’s  Houston Rockets tweeted his support for the Hong Kong protests. The tweet sparked a backlash from Chinese authorities, leading to an apology from the Rockets and eventually the cancellation of broadcasts of N.B.A. practice matches in China, one of the N.B.A.’s  largest markets.

Companies ranging from Marriott to United Airlines to Versace have also gone back in the past on perceived small things for the Chinese government, such as customer surveys that suggested Taiwan was an independent nation. All companies balance China’s huge economic opportunities, with its 1.4 billion consumers, with the negative public image of capitulating to an authoritarian government.

No multinational has arguably as much at stake in China as Apple, which assembles almost all of its products there and counts the country as its No. 3 market after the United States and Europe. It counted nearly $44 billion in revenue in the Greater China region, including Taiwan and Hong Kong, in the year ending June 30. Apple’s share price often rises or falls depending on its performance in China.

Mr. Cook has become a deft diplomat in China. He has traveled there many times and attended numerous Chinese government events. In recent months, he has advocated moderation in the trade war between the United States and China. While Mr. Cook regularly speaks out on political issues in the United States, such as gun control and immigration, he has largely remained silent on Chinese politics, including the Hong Kong clashes.

In late 2017, Mr. Cook said at a conference that while he disagreed with some Chinese policies, Apple must comply with local laws.

“Every country in the world sets its laws and rules, and so your choice is: are you in? Or are you standing on the sidelines and shouting what it should be like?” he said. “You come into the arena, because nothing ever changes from the sidelines.”

Maya Wang, a senior China researcher at Human Rights Watch in Hong Kong, said Apple’s decision to remove the Hong Kong app would boost the Chinese Communist Party.

“I think the party concludes from this that harassment, intimidation, and pressure work for most people in most places,” she said.

A Twitter account purported to be run by the developer of HKmap.live said in a post on Wednesday that Apple’s reasoning for removing the app—that protesters used it to attack police—was false.

“That’s ridiculous,” said the person who ran the account, who declined to give a name. The person shared a message Apple sent explaining the deletion. In the notice, the company cited the App Store policy that apps must comply with local law and not “engage in criminal activity or clearly reckless behavior.” The note is signed: ‘App Store Review’.

Supporters of the app have argued that it helps Hong Kong residents avoid clashes between police and protesters. The app “is used by passersby, protesters, journalists, tourists, and even pro-government supporters,” the HKmap.live Twitter account later tweeted, calling the removal “clearly a political decision to suppress freedom and human rights.”

The Twitter account said Google had not removed the app from the marketplace for Android devices. The account said the iPhone app had been downloaded more than 100,000 times and the Android app more than 50,000 times.

The app shows a map of Hong Kong with user updates on, among other things, the location of the police, their water cannons, and safe zones. Apple initially rejected the app because it allows people to evade police, the app’s Twitter account said last week. A few days later, the account tweeted that Apple had reversed course. According to the app data company Sensor Tower, it quickly became the best free app in Hong Kong, and criticism from mainland China began.

Speaking after the Volkskrant editorial board, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said that “anyone with a conscience and a sense of justice” should boycott the app.

Charles Mok, a pro-democracy lawmaker in Hong Kong, said on Thursday that he had sent a letter to Mr. Mok. Cook said HKmap helped live people avoid the protests.

“We Hong Kongers will certainly take a close look at whether Apple chooses to maintain its commitment to free speech and other fundamental human rights or become complicit in Chinese censorship and oppression,” he wrote.

In the United States, Senator Josh Hawley, a Republican from Missouri, tweeted that Apple had told him that the app’s initial rejection was a mistake. “It seems that the Chinese censors have heard from them ever since,” he said. “Who really runs Apple? Tim Cook or Beijing?”

Apple has taken other steps that appear to appease the Chinese government. It recently removed the Taiwanese flag emoji from iPhone keyboards in certain areas, including Hong Kong.

On September 30, Apple pulled the app from the news organization Quartz from the App Store in China, Quartz said. The news organization covering the Hong Kong protests said Apple had sent a vague message about deleting its app “because it contains content that is illegal in China.”

Zach Seward, Quartz’s chief executive, said in a statement, “We abhor this kind of government censorship of the Internet and have great coverage of how to circumvent such bans around the world,” and included a link to his articles about software designed to evade censorship.

Apple declined to comment Wednesday on the Quartz app and did not respond to a request regarding the Taiwanese-flagged emoji.

Apple has removed other apps in China that it allows elsewhere, including the New York Times app and some services that allowed Chinese users to bypass government internet restrictions.

As opposed to Google’s largely automated approach to Android apps, Apple has long taken pride in the fact that each app in its App Store has received approval from a member of its staff. At weekly meetings of senior executives, Phil Schiller, an executive who oversees the App Store, discusses apps that raise complex policy issues. That group decided to remove the HKmap.Live App said a person familiar with the decision declined to be named because the process was confidential.

Separately, Google removed a mobile game, The Revolution of Our Times I, that allowed users to play like protesters in Hong Kong. Google said it had taken the app out of the Android app store worldwide because it violated its policy that “prevents developers from taking advantage of sensitive events.”

The developer, who declined to be named, said in an email that they donated 80 percent of the app’s revenues to a group supporting the Hong Kong protests.

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