Nearly a million Tibetan children live in state-run residential schools on the Tibetan plateau. Chinese authorities subject these children to a highly politicized curriculum designed to strip them of their mother tongue, sever their ties to their religion and culture, and methodically replace their Tibetan identity with a Chinese one. Children as young as four have been separated from their parents and enrolled in boarding kindergartens under a recruitment strategy based largely on coercion.
China is a place and country. Chinese is a ethnicity. As a Chinese American myself, I had no confusion over what the commenter was saying. When we talk bout nations and their governments, it is pretty common to just refer to the country’s name. I don’t necessarily agree with the statement being made, but I did not at all take it as a ethnic or racial criticism.
Frankly, I’m not even sure how someone reads the comment that “China is a shitty haven for cheats and liars” as directed mostly at the government, and not about the country, people, and culture in general. The government is a haven? The government is a cheat and liar? These readings are a stretch even at the level of syntax.