About your second edit: If you live anywhere on earth that isn't in the geographical area of China it would likely be better to have data going to China than the big US corps. For most it is unlikely the data could be used against you in anything from ads to a police raid, unlike with something like Google collecting it where it will almost for sure be used and useful.
I hear this a lot, but it strikes me as being short sighted. That only works if the status quo remains so forever. Maybe 5 or 10 years from now, relations between the Chinese and US governments gets cozier, and part of their deal includes sharing of this kind of data.
Or maybe the US government knows it can't legally collect certain information on its own citizens, but can rely on China to collect it, and then purchase it from the Chinese government.
Then there's the overall argument against: I don't want any government collecting data about me, period. It's none of their damn business, regardless of the chances of me having to interact with them in any capacity.
The pessimist in me assumes that's because it's a good cover for the intelligence agencies data sharing agreements between the US, China, India, Russian, North Korea, et al.
