Even if the writers clearly make this distinction, Chinese people, driven by Chinese propaganda, will often conflate the two. Indeed, Chinese people, even in a non political context will sometimes treat a comment about a single Chinese individual as a statement about all Chinese people.
When we write “the Chinese” there is bound to be at least some subset of readers who see that and assume the write meant all Chinese.
I don’t believe we can be certain of the writers intent until the writer makes it clear.