I remember at the time being surprised that AO3 had lasted as long in China as it had. For over 6 months before hand they'd been flooded with Chinese fans because the government had shut down most of the Chinese-run sites. It almost felt like they were herding people onto AO3 to shut that down too and get the community all at once. But that's probably attributing more organisation than was occurring. So though only some of that about Xiao Zhan was known in English fandom at the time of the ban (and I didn't realise it was THAT Xiao Zhan until I listened to the NPR thing), I was 0% surprised that China had blocked AO3, and didn't think that the fan blow up was a determining factor, especially.

Though I remember finding the narrative that the Chinese M/M-lite shows were a Great Blow against Chinese censorship! Justice! pretty irritating.