>You gotta admire the Chinese bureaucracy for not using kid's gloves when dealing with a problem

Do you feel the same way when the "problem" is "people who want a say in government" or "student activists" or "Uyghurs" and "dealing" with it involves genocide? It's true that authoritarian countries can act decisively on real problems sometimes, when their own private politics align. But they far more regularly act "decisively" to make things worse, to crush freedoms, to cover up their own corruption, etc. It's not particularly admirable that once in a while they have good issues too.