This strikes me as scaremongering: yes, it's possible that this is some soft of malicious behaviour, but the article provides no evidence of that beyond "China.

This strikes me as scaremongering: yes, it's possible that this is some soft of malicious behaviour, but the article provides no evidence of that beyond "China." It's far more likely that the cheap Chinese smartwatch manufacturer simply uses servers in China (imagine that!) for collecting diagnostic data or to provide benign functionality.