That was notable because of how unusual it was. Chinese cities are extremely safe, generally speaking.

In the West we have a general consensus that any encroachment on freedom in the name of safety isn’t worth the trade. People even go so far as to claim that those who would choose safety don’t deserve it, which I find completely uncalled for and unnecessarily strident. A lot of Asian countries (China, Japan, Singapore) have no such problem, and view the US as a generally unsafe country.