I think they are both close to it. China is more obvious about it, and their iron-fist approach is perhaps a little less scary than the west's "normalise the atrocities" approach. China is a somewhat stagnant regime, perhaps somewhat set in their ways, yet the west comes across as an accelerating regime, becoming scarier faster.

The key difference for me (at least based on my own anecdata from speaking with people from China) is that Chinese people are not blind to the problems within their politics and government. Especially, the youth recognise the oppressive nature of the regime.

In the West, however, there is a subset of people for whom certain populist political figures can do no wrong. These people are happy to tolerate any "eccentricities", and perhaps don't understand what they might be enabling. And, unfortunately, the enablers are not a small minority.

For example, one guy even claimed he could shoot someone on 5th avenue and not lose a single vote; his supporters applauded in agreement.