A lot of the "don't tread on me" is window dressing.

Peter Thiel and his ilk absolutely adore what China has done. You have an elite - in this case, the CCP - that is entitled to their position by law. It bills itself as the "best and brightest" of society and has ideological constraints that it gets to impose on its members through the cadre system. The rest of the population labors for the benefit of this elite with little-to-no input on the operation of the ruling class.

That's what Thiel wants, just with his kind in the positions of power. It'd eliminate any opposition to what they imagine as the "right" way of doing things and reduce the friction to the creation of economic value for their holdings.

Note that "friction" in this case means things like human rights, democracy, competition, workers rights, etc.