However if bitcoin present challange to authority (not to actual fiscal power, but to the image of authority, like that "Chinese government can maintain the stability of our own currency"), they treat it differently.
Just speaking as an American observer, one thing that pre-disposes some Chinese citizens to Bitcoin is that millions were already involved in Q Coin, so the idea of digital cash isn't as foreign to them as it is to many Americans. P2P networks in all forms are also familiar territory to a lot of net users in China so the idea of P2P money probably has a little wider acceptance than it would here in the US. In comparison to the rest of the world, most Americans are stodgy and conservative in matters relating to currency. Overall, Bitcoin will probably do better in China than it has here in the US.
A practical matter would also be that if the Chinese government sees Bitcoin as a threat to Western banking (Western banks have admitted as much), then Bitcoin could be seen as a tool to increase their influence if it can undermine the European Central Bank's and the Federal Reserve's influence. But I do agree with you that if your government (or mine) felt more threatened by Bitcoin, they probably would come down on it hard.