To which he replied, "Because you can't let a camel herder become President."
Deciding "people can't think for themselves" is a slippery slope. And you've got to be talking about a pretty serious ill to balance those scales. (Take it from a country that had a camel herder for a President for four years...)
The problem is the means. The Western viewpoint is that it smells like the ends don’t justify the means, and China hardly has anything resembling rule of law.
How do we operate in this era? That's up to really smart people in the bowels of Western capitols. But in my own opinion, rule of law or no, I'm not sure going to bat for the likes of Ant is a hill we want to send soldiers to die on as they say. Ant itself was intended to flout the rule of International Law. How do we argue on its behalf in the name of "rule of law"? That squanders what little credibility we do have in China.
Of course it's a bad thing when government can seize property at will without clear legislations, separation of power, checks and balances.
It's a bad omen, it means that Chinese institutions are flawed.
Rapidly increasing consumer debt in an economy is not necessarily a good thing as more than demonstrated by subprime debt in the 08 financial crises. If completely unchecked, it is in the interest of a company like Any to keep pushing out loans, and it wouldn't be that they are knowingly doing anything wrong. However it might not be good for the rest of society. I think western media enjoys portraying this whole incident in some sort of nefarious light but I actually think it's a prescient and responsible move.