I think that there are two - actually, three - different and distinct issues here, and they are being conflated wrongly.
One is China, and how it projects and presents itself, a matter of concern to others only on account of its growing (socio-economic-military) power and lack of inhibition - in recent times - in displaying, projecting, and openly using that power.
The second is the supposed unwillingness of "the left" to find fault with China, which is a straw man argument, but, unfortunately, one which finds traction in the US, out of political or historical illiteracy.
As
@Pumbaa has already rightly observed, this is not the case in Europe, where China's deplorable record on human rights has long been attacked by many European governments, including the EU.
The third is the extraordinary issue of "effeminacy", how it is defined, why it is perceived as a threat (to image, identity, sense of self, masculinity), and why this is an issue now (as opposed to earlier).
I think there are two elements to this:
One is the predictable cliché common to a great many totalitarian states, (and lamentably, occasionally, democracies, too), whereby the values that are ascribed to "masculinity" are elevated as ideal, sometimes to ludicrous and ridiculous lengths, while those (males) purporting to "lead", (or who wish to lead), need to be seen to represent them, express them, master them, in their everyday lives: This is the "strong man" stuff, which, at its worst, seems to trip into the territory of parody, as some of these leaders insist on stressing (and protesting) their masculinity in a way that is completely normal and natural in a teenaged boy who is busy and absorbed in discovering himself, and finding out who he is, but downright peculiar (in a "he doth protest too much" sense) in a mature, powerful, (middle-aged) adult male.
And here, I need only refer to (the soft-focus shots of) Vladimir Putin riding bare-chested through the tundra, or the macho nonsense indulged in by Alexander Lukashenko in Belarus (energetic contests with hockey sticks, - one bizarre competition went by the name of "The Golden Puc"), vigorous skiing expeditions (I seem to recall that Prince Charles's equerry died on one such trip, when accidentally buried in snow, while Spain's King Juan Carlos, when he still reigned, managed to break a leg on a trip to the ski slopes); there are countless other examples.
The second is that - I suspect - that this attack on what the Chinese state is attempting to present as "effeminacy" is - paradoxically - both a sign of greater Chinese self confidence (the last time the Chinese state attempted to essay and implement a deranged insight into how popular Chinese culture could and should be expressed - during the Cultural Revolution - the consequences were catastrophic), and secondly, as a sign of this uncomfortable and poorly expressed (but growing) confidence, - a confidence that is evident by the very fact that the Chinese state now considers itself an authority on defining what is culturally acceptable or desirable - and also a curiously crude attempt to reject the trope, or unchallenged stereotype, of Asian males as "effeminate", by presenting - and commanding the appearance of on state TV - of a poorly conceived (state sponsored) alternative.
However, it is telling that this is something that the Chinese state appears to find threatening and unsettling, sufficiently unsettling to want to try to change - by interfering in "cultural norms", left largely untouched since the debacle of the Cultural Revolution - by state decree or diktat.