My wife is Chinese and we used to use Skype to video-chat with her family. From about 2008 the only version of Skype you could download in China was called TOM Skype, a modified version with back doors enabling Chinese state surveillance of communications. Links to regular Skype download sites were blocked and redirected you to TOM Skype.

So none of this is really new. As technology and platforms have developed, the Chinese state has improved and expanded it's surveillance and suppression apparatus. I'm no fan of Xi and the situation has definitely worsened under him, but this is how the system works.