There's a lot to criticise Washington for right now, and westerners will generally care a lot more about it since it affects them, even if it's only indirectly.
It's also a bit of a reaction to how the western MSM tends to be the opposite, being critical of everything the CPC does.
Very early on there was a hard-coded slur censor list that was eventually changed to be settable by the instance admin, that's about it.