Here's my take on the China question.
The small and very subtle difference: It works ONLY for the Chinese.
Although it is totalitarian, but if the "contract" is completely transparent, no one can say that free will has been violated, beyond a few dissidents.
Of course, we cannot generalize and settle for adding that there are some who do not accept the contract, because we know that China, its population, has undergone brutal indoctrination. And that is another vital difference. This indoctrination in China has been going on for decades, while in the Western world it has only been enhanced in the last twenty years. It is the pressure that makes injecting this program (no pun intended) many people resist it.