Most of the difficulties the author is mentioning are caused by the US sanctions that have been put in place after Trump's decision to walk away from the deal the US signed with Iran (against international laws). What you call "democracy" is causing most of the difficulties the author encounter, not the censorship or surveillance from the "dictatorship". But I think it's not more the role of developers to change the politics than any regular citizen. In that case, you might want to reconsider the products you buy from China as well.