The point is, why punish the people when its the goverment to blame?
A boycott will punish the government too. But it's the long run we have to consider here. Boycotts have an impressive success record. The boycott and international sanctions against the white South African regime greatly helped to end apartheid, even though blacks suffered financially too. And black activists, like Mandela, suffered personally, but that didn't make them not speak up. Because they knew a greater good was involved.
In China, the labor force is not free. When we buy goods manufactured in China we are contributing to the perpetuation of a labor force that has no right to organize, to bargain or to strike. Labor organizers are either in jail or slave labor camps, or have been executed. So we are punishing the people by not boycotting, by buying their stuff, while rewarding the government.
By the way, the single largest importer of Chinese-made products in the world is stinking Wal-Mart, of course. If something's wrong somewhere, you can be sure Wal-Mart has a hand in it. Because when your sole motivation and guiding principle is profit, you create imbalances in all other areas. Same with the consumer. When your sole motivation is saving money, you contribute to the financial dysfunction of the nation and world, and in the long run, it will come back and bite you.
And, sure, we should be boycotting a lot of US companies for a lot of other things, like Wal-Mart and Philip Morris (Kraft Foods), to name a few. The point is we have to consume consciously, and not give in to the status quo and become defeatist in our attitude.