Dictatorship do make a difference. As far as I know Chinese government is pushy on what they wanted to implement, and at the same time they are releasing fake news in order to hide what really is happening in their country. It is either of the two but I think it is more on the first one why CBDC in China is showing a solid growth.
Any evidence of them hiding news stories? I am sure that every government has hidden stories from the public that is why we have the freedom of information act which gets released after a certain time duration has passed.
I also think that the government knows who Satoshi is and I am also one among the people who believe in a conspiracy theory that Satoshi is already dead killed by higher authority to stop or hinder the propagation of Bitcoin. They maybe somehow successful in hindering but these authority failed miserably in stopping the propagation of Bitcoin.
Why would the government kill someone that does not have any effect on btc? They would have known that Btc is decentralized and does not rely on Satoshi. Bitcoin was already being developed by other developers by the time Satoshi disappeared and if this conspiracy theory was true those developers and the current developers would be under threat.
You would have to connect more conspiracy theories to reach his conclusion that Satoshi is dead. But if they got Satoshi first, I'm pretty sure Satoshi would be tortured so they'd get his key.
Most countries are hiding thier dirt, China has more to hide but one thing that they don't do is meddle in the politics of other countries. If they make business with the US, they can also do business with Russia.
As for the known developers, only time will tell. But getting your dev teams to have an office in Hongkong, seem a neutral ground. Because China allows Hongkong to be a crypto hub.