Yeah, not really.
The hadith clearly states plague is a punishment. Not potentially, but actually. It can POTENTIALLY be a Mercy — when it befalls a Believer and is faced with patience and Imaan.
The only thing we don’t know is what precisely is being punished in this case; the abuse of the Uighur, the complicity in and enabling of the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya, the declared intention to re-write the Qur’an, or the general repressiveness of the state against its citizens…the CAUSE is up for debate, but Rasulullah said plague is punishment, so plague is punishment.
There is no reason why we cannot feel care and compassion for the punished in this life, as we are all undoubtedly eligible for some degree of punishment as well. But if we demur from identifying Allah’s Punishment when and where it manifests, we waste the lesson it teaches and the lack of acknowledgement hinders taubah