[lhorie]

Your description sounds pretty on point with what I've observed as well, and I want to clarify that I'm not defending China nor trying to belittle the very real differences between China and US ideology.

To try to address the root of your objection: the main difference IMHO is the idea of disagreeing/activism being based on notions of arbitrary freedom vs the one-way-or-highway approach being based on a notion that there is such a thing as "what's good for you". I think there are good and bad examples of both approaches/outcomes, both in this thread and various recent news topics (e.g. your point about how freedom of speech is a good thing(tm) vs the whole "mah freedom" thing backfiring royally as far as Covid goes)

If we look from this angle, neither ideology really "wins unequivocally", so I don't think I should get to call which framework is ethically acceptable or unacceptable. Instead, I'm trying to call out biases - particularly westerner-leaning ones given that this is a westerner forum talking about an article from a westerner source that quotes western-sympathetic ideas while conveniently not extending the favor to the other side. If you scroll around, you may notice that there are several comments effectively crying "dictatorship", and many failing to grasp the nuance about how this specific policy affects companies more so than children per se, mirroring an overarching anti-China narrative that I've been seeing a lot of lately. If I felt that the reporting was truly unbiased and accurate and that people were interpreting it with unbiased lenses, I wouldn't be taking the position I am here (I am, in fact, largely playing devils' advocate, as my own personal opinions fall more in line with westerner sensibilities)