And Russia restricts free speech better than China? Although I wouldn't argue Russia is a bastion of free speech, I do talk with my Russian friends over Facebook, Skype, email, etc, make jokes about and criticize their (and our) governments just fine without any problems so far. I cannot say the same of my Chinese colleagues, which I rarely interact and which have been so conditioned to suppress their opinions that even while visiting a foreign country where they were free to say whatever they wanted in private, even then refrained from doing so.

So yeah, both countries are quite bad when compared to the freedom heaven that the US is (wait.. what? NSA?) but I wouldn't go that far to put Russia and China in the same basket (unless we're willing to put all sufficiently advanced countries together, since it's pretty clear a great majority are already spying on their own citizens)