There is a difference. Nobody in the first world really cares about Uighurs or Hong Kong. However, there are quite a handful of parties who do care about patents (and resulting profits).
China has been pilfering intellectual property from labs & private companies via APTs for the last couple of years: what are the handful of parties who care about patents going to do - write a strongly worded letter? If China decides it wants to get the latest ARM design and/or ISA in the future, do you doubt they can acquire them? Sure, they won't be able to call it "ARM" but you can bet it will be compatible[1].
