Is that really a problem, overall, in terms of spying?
Most radio signals only easily transmissible for a few hundred miles, and China probably couldn’t pick up most of those signals from America.
It just sounds like to me that China simply didn’t block off the transmitters for the signals it uses domestically and it’s not about spying.
It’s not spying. Its radio interference. They go further than a CB, but they are not going get to China on 5 watts.
Unless you are using a network of repeaters the Baofengs are only good for a few miles, but here in Florida I monitor a Statewide network of repeaters and can talk to people all over the state with a $20 radio, not bad IMO
Now if you are talking HF frequencies, I have a setup where I have talked to people in Europe from my driveway in North Florida...generally it’s pretty easy to make contacts up and down the Eastern Seaboard and into the midwest to states like Texas, Oklahoma, up to Minnesota and into Canada