Painting China as dystopian big Other has major drawbacks.

First, people who visit and see that it's relatively comfortable for most people, they often discount everything they've heard about China and become infatuated as it exceeds expectations. We call this marcopolo-itis.

Second, it distracts us from China's real problems.
And finally, it creates an imaginary bogeyman that distracts us from and excuses creeping authoritarianism, government overreach, and other problems at home, because:
"At least we ain't China."

I've been saying all of the above for 4 years now. You can find all of my writing and public talking on social credit here, along with heaps and heaps of translated primary sources: https://www.chinalawtranslate.com/en/social-credit-articles/