It’s been reported on now such that the term has stuck, so yes I understand that pro-china people will also be using the same term so they can talk about the same thing, pro-china reporters may also not be gamers and not have known that more ‘natural’ (non-direct) translation already exists in English, but in the earliest instances when it hadn’t yet made the jump across to widestream western reporting, choices were made to keep the awkward term ‘kill line’ rather than localise it. There were commentators like me who said ‘kill line’ is unnatural. In the instances of pro-china people I do not imagine that they would wilfully translate something awkward maliciously, but I don’t give the same benefit of the doubt to western msm who would have only been a step or so behind, if not learning at the same pace.

It’s one of those things where yes, by the time it blows up it’s hard to say ‘Hey you’re translating this kinda wrong’ but by then it’s too late and it’s stuck