Isn't this essentially true in the US too though? The feds can show up at your data center with a National Security Letter and demand access at gunpoint. And you have to give it to them, because guns, and you can't ever tell anyone about it because that's what it says in the National Security Letter and also because guns.
Your reply already shows the difference. In US you have the default expectation of privacy, until the feds get their eyes on you. Meanwhile in China the default expectation is no privacy, exactly as OP argued.
This system in action is best demonstrated during the lock-down period of COVID, when any random dude who contracted the virus would immediately have their personal life for the previous week/month published nationwide to the hour, and those who have overlap will immediately get a 14 day lock-down at home.
I have not seen surveillance done with such ease and breath elsewhere. And local PD already have access to such info, and there are scandals where police sell such info for profit.
