Not really - can USA spy on credit cards issued by Chinese banks? And vice-versa? There is at least some level of privacy. But with BTC every time you make a purchase you can be linked to all your previous and future purchases.

If it's a Visa or MasterCard, yes the US Gov can spy on it.

If it isn't, you can't use it to pay Mailpile- so it's irreverent.

That's only true if one has access to data at every point in the block chain. If at some point coins go to a private person or company that didn't advertise their address anywhere you're lost. There's no way to know who own a Bitcoin address if it's not part of any online service/exchange and was funded by someone else.

>But with BTC every time you make a purchase you can be linked to all your previous and future purchases.

This is simply not true. If i make my first purchuase using address A and my second purchuase using address B, how can they be linked together?

The US surely can spy on Chinese CC transactions that occur in, or where the tx data passes through a friendly locale. There is a decent chance for them to be able to get CC tx data from within China as well.