I'm non American as well, I get what you mean, the hysteria can sometimes be tiring. And the hypocritical it's-only-okay-when-we-do-it exceptionalism is maddeni

I'm non American as well, I get what you mean, the hysteria can sometimes be tiring. And the hypocritical it's-only-okay-when-we-do-it exceptionalism is maddening. However, you shouldn't put too much weight on the absence of proof for Chinese invasion of your privacy. China is an authoritarian regime, what this translates to in practice is that, while a "democracy" like the US or a European country will spy on you and violate both your and its own citizens rights, it can be caught and its PR will then cry and act really sorry (for whatever good this does), while a regime like China or Russia will brutally lock away or assassinate anyone digging dirt, and in the rare case they do get caught they will just smirk smugly and ask you what you're going to do about it. Both of those options suck, I know, a sane man will get far away from both of them, but one of them is strictly worse than the other in a very clear sense. >I'm not really sure what the People's Liberation Army will do with all my cat videos Why, they are going to breed feline supurr-soldiers and subjugate your people with them off course. Meowahahaha. Jokes aside, you're underselling the amount of power they have over you. Just off the top of my head, and I'm not remotely knowledgeable in security, smartphones put geotags and timestamps in photos and videos. The PLA and their friends are probably not interested in your Mr.ButterMeow, but they are interested in where you live and when you are glued to an app that monopolises your attention. What are they going to do with this ? I don't know, but it can't be a good thing. There is such a thing as a "I don't have anything to hide" fallacy, it's a fallacy because (1) you don't know your attacker's mind, anything you do could be something you would very much want to hide if you only knew what your attacker intends to do with it (2) Rights are defended on principle, if I broke into your home and stole all the garbage, then that is still a violation of your rights, even if 0 harm or even negative harm was done. A principle is like an algorithm, it has to be followed to the letter even if the circumstances are amenable to a special shortcut.