I've been to both.

Thailand is the place where I felt like I could be arrested for being slightly out of line and had to tread very carefully. People in China had no problem complaining about their government, and there aren't portraits of their dear leader plastered everywhere like in Thailand.

I also never saw people openly using drugged up and sedated kids as a begging tool in China, but I sure did in Thailand.

The perception of the countries always feels astonishingly backwards to me.