China doesn't need to 100% enforce the law to effectively make something illegal. Even if they catch and prosecute 1%, their justice system is dangerous enough that most people won't take the risk.
For crypto as currency, this is effectively a death sentence. If most people are afraid to hold or trade it, you can't use it locally.
It would only be useful to people hoping to exfiltrate value and then leave the country, which is not a majority of people.
Well tell that to the state employees openly trading crypto as mentioned earlier.
just because a few people, in positions of privilege or high risk takers, do it, doesn't mean the majority is capable or willing.
Maybe not majority but a very high % of people in China would do anything to make money. And it's not just a few people in positions of privilege. It's your regular people working in state corps.
It's the same way everywhere really. Technically Elon Musk is supposed to have his twitter activity supervised as per agreement with regulators. I don't think that's happening but somehow nobody cares