I generally agree with you but it's a lot easier for the west to turn a blind eye to the middle east or Africa (especially post fracking) than it is to turn a blind eye to the far east. By virtue of their standards of living, deep economic ties and stable governments the more developed parts of the far east are basically honorary Europe in the west's mind and that comes with higher expectations of civility.
It's really hard to predict where the "fuck it, you've gone too far, we can't do nothing this time" line is. Remember, basically everyone else in Asia is rooting for the west to cut china off economically so they can fill China's manufacturing role.
I agree that unless the Chinese really butcher people it will be business as usual but the chance of some viral video lighting a fire under the politician's asses is not to be discounted, especially when the current US administration has taken a policy line that means they will play up these kinds of things for negotiating leverage.
Edit: by "honorary Europe" I mean they have similar standards of living, similar strong and stable government institutions and with that comes the expectation that they won't just drive tanks over people at the drop of a hat. Basically, they're rich enough that we expect them to handle the problem in what we consider the "right way".