That argument applies not only to China, but to Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam and other countries where information is tightly controlled, people are unable to make informed judgments, and leaders are imposed rather than elected. The last time we brought up this point, House Democratic leader Richard Gephardt was debating then-secretary of state Madeleine Albright on U.S. China policy. China is made up of 1.2 billion people who are surely not those Gephardt wants to punish, nor are they those with whom Albright was planning to have a dialogue. Americans involved in shaping public policy and public opinion really should be more precise. Presumably, most of the Americans holding that view weren't Chinese Americans themselves.
Linguistic precision is important.
As French philosopher Jean-Francois Revel has noted, any society in which you ask for a screwdriver and are handed a monkey wrench is a society doomed to decline. Americans have grave concerns these days about the actions and intentions of the government of China.