Since no western news media is good enough for you, I will use the text that Snowden himself wrote in his autobiography, since you seem to classify him as a trustful source.
In his biography Snowden wrote that one of the motives for the leak was when he learned about the extent that China collected telephone and internet communications. He described the amount of data being collected to be appalling.
He wrote his while being in Russia, so there should have been minimal “western influence”.
Also Snowden lived in China for a while, so he does know his stuff.