Harsh, perhaps, but well deserved (Technology Review used to produce interesting articles back in the day but now just create clickbait, so I'm triggered in this regard).

The reasoning for abandoning it has been communicated as both that thorium technology doesn't align with weapons research, and that working with molten salt at scale is more challenging than water.

I've not seen anything yet that gives details on China's advancements, only that they're actually moving forward with it. I've a notion they are not incentivized to share that information.

Disclaimer: i'm just a random geek on teh interwebs who saw the LFTR Ted Talk way back when and has been waiting for it to deliver the goods for real.