I’m not validating the automatic anti-China sentiment you can sometimes get in these discussions, but there is a major difference between the two. If you live in any mainstream European, or for simplicity’s sake, ‘Western’ country, regardless of your feelings towards U.S. intelligence gathering, these are political allies who share intelligence as a matter of course anyway. China is an actively hostile power who just recently penetrated the domestic U.S. phone network.

Obviously skepticism on this topic is a generally good thing, but I think nihilism to the point that one thinks the U.S. is no different to China, Russia or North Korea is neither accurate nor particularly helpful.