What would you pick? - A slow and growing endemic with a huge death and economic toll or a short but ruthless restrictions for a 2-3 weeks? I'd pick the latter any time! We saw how better China fared compared to the rest of the world so far!
It seems to me like the real issues revolve around the mis-management of availability of basic goods such as food and medicines.
And another common critic is that such strict lockdowns while surely working for the original strains of Covid-19 seem to be much less effective with the recent more infective variants.
As a side note, it has IMHO still to be seen how much China fared better than other countries.