Welcome to the world of government contracts, big projects tend to be vastly different than what is proposed or agreed too.
Hence I am confused as to why the controversy this time.
Frankly I am amazed at how much oversight there isn't on billion dollar plus projects. You would think there should be more than one agency, in particular neutral non government agencies that should be required to sign off on projects that crest a certain dollar amount.
This is not to say that big government projects are all bad, they do lay ground work for many private companies to build on. Look as Space X, it would not be where it is today if not for NASA but it is a better choice for many things that NASA because of its big government mentality are not good at anymore. We only have to look at the recent boondoggle that was the ACA's main website to understand that oversight by non politically aligned, no government groups, is warranted.
TL;DR.
Yes, a lot of China bashing going on, to redirect the ire from its rightful spot, inept government with no real oversight. There needs to be "civilian" oversight on large government projects, appointed by industry experts.
That's not to say that these are unique problems because the contracting firm was Chinese, rather than, say, French. However, in this case it is relevant to the overall narrative that the challenges exist, because they make it that much harder to proactively address quality deficiencies.