You have to choose to draw the line somewhere. You can choose no line (absolute free speech), a conservative line that only limits some speech (where most of the West stands, staggered a bit), or a quite restrictive line that tightly controls public discourse (where China stands, to take your example).

I don’t believe absolute free speech is a sustainable option for societies on the scale of countries. Absolute free speech would invite chaos.

Free speech is not a natural phenomenon. It is an artificial concept created by humans, and thus we have the complete power to define it and choose what it means. Different groups choose differently.