In retrospect this makes sense to me. I don't like it, but I get it now. When Apple said "privacy" what they meant was "we don't like tracking cookies or hackers but everything else is fine".
If your threat model includes being the target of someone who will plant child pornography on your phone, you are already fucked. And no, Apple isn’t suddenly going to scan Chinese iPhones for Winnie the Pooh memes. They don’t have to. China already has the 50 cent party to do that for them, on WeChat.
Basically everything everyone seems to think is just around the corner has already been possible for years.