For what it's worth I doubt many of those commented have ever lived (or even visited) China. It's easy to create a false equivalency when you have no real experience of the situation.
This is a different situation, and it's sadly Orwellian.
I had a coworker who grew up in Romania under Ceausescu and the stories he told! He talked about neighbors just disappearing one day and someone new living in the home. People didn't bat an eye since if you started asking questions, you might be next.
He mentioned how there was an election for president and it was a write in ballot. Someone wrote "Mickey Mouse". Despite voting in a booth in private, they figured out who he was and he had to report for "reeducation" every weekend. This involved sitting in the police station watching propaganda all day Saturday and Sunday.
I don't think people in the West can even fathom what it's like to live under an authoritarian system like that.
I can second this. I moved from western Europe to Romania. I've been here for more than two years now and I've heard some pretty insane stories. Most of the people I know are young and were children or teenagers towards the end of communism, but their parents lived through it all.
This is a different situation, and it's sadly Orwellian.