There are many types of freedom. 
The freedom I'm referring to is financial freedom which is EXTREMELY difficult to attain in the  US right now. By living in China I can "retire" in Thailand (a cash based country) by 45, then sure, I'll suck it up.

Also, the US has freedom sure, it also has a lot of shit policies and government overreach. Being an expat in China is actually not that bad (shockingly). Wouldn't want to stay here forever of course. But then again, I never want to live in the US again either haha.

A few things I commented to someone else are appropriate here:
Refer here https://stacker.news/items/457267/r/expatriotic?commentId=458074

expatriotic

bitcoin

Being expatriotic

Imagine the the cognitive dissonance of moving into a country with an oppressive authoritarian regime that does a communism-LARP and trying to frame that as optimizing for freedom.