This shit has seriously gone on too long. People who continue to cling to the "10,000 dead crushed by tanks hosed i to the gutter" bs are cranks. It's jews control the banks, chemtrails, the earth is flat, the moon isn't real level of crank shit and unless you're feeling very indulgent and someone is asking in good faith it can be dismissed as equally serious to that kind of crank shit.
Sounds to me like she was an early example of a Yeonmi Park, where you get famous for a thing that everyone is primed to hate and then every time you talk about it you have to one up the previous time you talked about it.
YP is a refinement. Chai Ling was talking wild shit from the jump, YP escalated over time like you say.