Except the US is not. That's the point s/he was trying to make. Exaggeration only pushes the discussion to the most radical corners and ignores nuance.
They're trying to prosecute someone for the exact thing we need journalists to do in a free society. That's what China does, it's wrong, and we shouldn't be doing it.
You don't get to say we're not doing it until we're not doing it.
The US is better than China, but that's a low bar, and in a few areas it's only barely clearing that bar.
In other areas it's a lot better of course. Censorship is the big one. Also, the way China has oppressed some minorities (Uyghurs) hasn't happened in the US in decades (black people, native Americans). And the oppression did happen in a different way. But "different" isn't always better.
The purpose of these comparisons is to identify the similarity to the behavior of a country known to be worse. "China is worse." Yes, that's the point. We don't want to be like them, so we have to stop being like them.