They're right though, and you must not be pushing any kind of sensitive boundary to think it's not an authoritarian state.

Which town are you from? In the countryside there are hilarious Big Brother style posters on houses promoting civil obedience. People don't think it's strange at all, of course they're not going to recognise the depths of their repression unless they're educated and well traveled.

I went looking for the story on Chinese sites, even though my Chinese is not quite good enough for this to be practical. I couldn't find anything, so I asked one Chinese friend and two acquaintances about it. Two couldn't find anything. The third found some ordinary people talking about it, but no news websites. She told me without irony that "there are a lot of Chinese people. The societal environment is complex. The government will block the passage of information in order to safeguard societal stability and harmony".

If somebody better at Chinese can find anything, I'd appreciate hearing about it. Thanks in advance.

Global Times is like the Chinese version of InfoWars (or worse), which publishes party propaganda and frequently incites chauvinism and hatred towards US, Japan, Australia, Korea, Taiwan, etc. Educated Chinese people usually don't take it as a reliable source of news.