My only strong opinion is that I'm completely unqualified to opine on this as a white american westerner. When the Dragonfly outrage was happening within the company, many people stood up and helped kill the project (by leaking, by complaining internally, by refusing to work on it, etc.). But the Chinese nationals I work with weren't particularly pleased with all the westerners speaking on their behalf. Obviously my sampling doesn't represent the population, but the general attitude was that Baidu is woefully subpar and denying access to information, censored or not, was against Google's stated mission.

Believe me, I'm greatly disturbed by China's censorship. Talking shit about my own government is a right I can't imagine losing, let alone access to the treasure troves of anti-US thought. I also know how terrified I would be if my own government had the ability to lock down information. Imagine Trump and the GOP having that power, even for 4 years, and what damage they could do. (And GOP voters would make the same argument, of course, the other way around, and already do fear that tech companies are censoring their freedom of thoughts).

So believe me, I'm not trying to defend China here, nor am I trying to shill for the project. But it's not my lane to opine on, and I had hopes that if the project did launch, that some good could come out of it. But your concerns are absolutely valid too.