Its not that these articles are irrelevant. They are definitely talking about real privacy issues. The problem is when people try to say that Russia or China are some how these great empires that are complete free of issues.
I'm not sure if you realized or not but Russia and China are much less private and have state dictated history. You can't even read the public Wikipedia articles as they give you access to real information instead of the state narrative. For instance, back in WWII the US ran interment camps to imprison Asian Americans. It was wrong and terrible in many ways (I used to know a survivor) but the difference is it isn't illegal to talk about or share information and discuss historically or current events.
Maybe its just me but I don't like when people comment saying how China or Russia can do no wrong.