They never said US bad.

I think its totally reasonable to point out that there was a sudden, drastic shift in tone over the last 3-6 months.

TikTok was gaining popularity last summer, and no one, short of a few NYT op-eds, said anything.

China is a geopolitical rival. We should probably aspire to be better than them first rather than copy them with an internet firewall and censorship of our own. One of the challenges of doing that nowadays is we have a president who thinks cultural genocide of Uighur muslims is 'exactly the right thing to do' and that Tienanmen square massacre was also the right thing to do.

edit: gendered language edit: updated quote for accuracy (absolutely->exactly)