Yeah the distinction between the two shouldn’t be forgotten, the Wests notion of the drug war however prevents other countries from not adhering too it through soft power.

Similarly the Chinese approach while successful, still bares the obvious scars of their colonized past and cant have been said to be a policy that was informed by sociological principles, but a defensive mechanism against the repetition of mass destabilization that can happen when a foreign power floods your populace with highly addictive and deadly drugs, and you lack the means to properly educate the working class on the mechanisms of drug addiction.

Regardless I do think that moving towards a policy of at least, principled scientific reform of drug policy to adhere to informed practices around recreational use.