> if it can produce the exact same output as some Chinese speaker, then I don't see by what non-spiritualistic criteria anyone could argue that it is fundamentally different from a Chinese speaker.

Indeed. The crux of the debate is:

a) how many input and response pairs are needed to agree that the rule-provider plus the Chinese room operation is fundamentally equal/different to a Chinese speakers

b) what topics can we agree to exclude so that if point a can be passed with the given set of topics we can agree that 'the rule-provider plus the Chinese room operation' is fundamentally equal/different to a Chinese speaker

As far as I can see, Searle rejects the whole concept, and claims that by construction, it is obvious that the Chinese room doesn't understand Chinese in the same way that a speaker does, regardless of how well it can mimic Chinese speech.