Thanks for taking the time to write this out. I'm not an expert and have only made my way through ten chapters of Vogelsang thus far (so not the readings). I did, however, remember reading Nordin's popular introduction to Chinese philosophy (The Art of Chinese Philosophy), in which he says of the Laozi:

If making the people “think their food sweet, their vestments beautiful,
their dwellings secure, and their customs delightful” calls to mind North
Korea, where much of the citizenry lives within range of South Korean
airwaves, but is too terrified to inquire further, one can only wonder
whether Laozi has, directly or indirectly, inspired the regime.

and later:

The foregoing has been, by and large, a mainstream reading of Laozi,
though perhaps highlighting the political implications more than most,
since I believe that whitewashing them would result in distortion.

Again, I'm no expert, so I can't engage with your specific philological points. I've struggled enough with the concept of free will in English (where I have found P.M.S. Hacker's discussion of Libet most enlightening, by the by). I certainly can't approach it in Chinese.