I agree, I've no idea why it would be at the top of HN. Maybe China-hate?
I am not using it "dishonestly", and I think that the conclusion it guides people to is completely reasonable and accurate - we should dismiss the majority of opinions that take the form "yup, that's just like China" or "China is doing this shit again? what a surprise."
The behaviors of individual workers in a system where they're being incentivized improperly don't have anything to do with China's current geo-political actions, and I get tired of so many people acting like 'China' (or 'the GOP' or 'California') is a single coherent entity with self-consistent behavior at all scales.