There’s a lot of value in paying/blackmailing the moderators. You can clearly certain subreddits, such as r/worldnews, becoming increasingly pro-China. The mod team played a huge role in this, as they have been perma banning people who post a lot of anti-China comments. I’ve for instance had several accounts banned (one simply for sarcastically saying “Thanks China”) - there were also a thread on r/China where plenty of people mentioned they had been banned for similar reasons.

If you follow r/WatchRedditDie then you can see this anti-China censorship on a daily basis.. for instance, this is on the frontpage right now: https://i.imgur.com/RuHpkC5_d.jpg