Google is blocked in China so naturally they'd need a Chinese alternative, with everything going on it's easy to fear monger but people need to chill out a bit. Locale is probably one of the least intrusive ways to determine location, using GPS would probably cause an even further problem if people realise that there's a backdoor to avoid location permission

Any company that markets/releases in China and relies on some google service (maps/safe search/safety net/google sign in/firebase/etc) need to find an alternative, not because everyone is on the Chinese payroll but more often than not these services are business critical.