I don't know about the suggestion that it's the government of China pushing for the feature itself, but the fact the feature now exists and WILL be used by authoritarian regimes to scan for political content is clearly understood by Apple employees. From the article:

> Apple employees have flooded an Apple internal Slack channel with more than 800 messages on the plan announced a week ago, workers who asked not to be identified told Reuters. Many expressed worries that the feature could be exploited by repressive governments looking to find other material for censorship or arrests, according to workers who saw the days-long thread.