Except that's what the professor thought would happen, not what actually did. If we're to act on hypothetical then where would we draw the line? The US asks visa applicants for all of their social media accounts, seems pretty standard to me.

The benefit of being a government that oppressing people who criticize it, is that they don't actually have to punish every single dissident.

All you have to do, is make the threat known, and punish enough people, that everyone else falls in line.

In this case, the behavior was directly caused by someone being justifiable afraid of something that could happen to them.

This is known as a "chilling effect".

So, yes, the CCP absolutely has something to do with the culture of fear that they created, that causes people to take these actions.

That's what the professor thought would happen, based on historical precedent. She used that precedent as a basis to proactively act against the candidate.