Fair but while America is far from squeaky clean, I’ve never avoided traveling via one of their airports for fear of something I said about their president on social media. And if they did I wouldn’t, except in extreme cases, disappear from the face of the earth with my family having no idea what happened to me. China does these things routinely. Even to very prominent members of their own society.

This is exactly the point. Both are bad, but one plays by no rules whatsoever, while the other at least pays lip service to them.