> All this is clearly against the western values that i often hear quoted when I hear the same people talking about "China". But Japan seems to be ok for them.

I think you're jumping to conclusions here.

Are people in Japan disappeared for criticizing the government? Do they have their organs harvested / altered for believing the wrong religion?

I'm OK with a society with very different defaults than my own. In fact, I prefer it - real diversity doesn't come from mixing (like we do in the West - the mix of all colors is shitty brown), it comes from people being strongly different, yet managing to coexist.

So Japan is OK. It works as a society. Also for the "different" (well... somewhat - there are problems with overworking, herbivore men, low natality etc. but the West has analogous problems). China doesn't work; people aren't free; it's a repressive regime.