Something that people yake for granted is that while some UI patterns are more intuitive and sensible than others, the larger picture which is formed when countless such patterns are stiched together usually relies on cultural inertia to be generally accessible. Some softwares are revolutionary in their design but most have to stick within a narrow window of what other popular softwares are doing. GNOME and KDE for example took a lot of cues from Windows and Mac were doing over the years. This is mostly because Microshit and Apple are monopolistic companies with a deep market reach and deviating drastically from the norms set by them would dissuade a lot of potential newcomers.

China’s stuff–websites and apps–looks different because they were not tethered to norms set by the Western tech industries since they did not or could not cater to the Chinese market. I don’t mean to say it is better or worse because of that. But it’s good that this variety exists.