What needs to be understood about NEO is that it's Chinese - in fact the first Chinese blockchain implementation.

Now, for those who know anything about Chinese culture - they don't measure technology primarily on it's technical merits, but whether it's developed and owned by them. Chinese don't buy into western technology, they make their own version (e.g see how Google, FB, Twitter etc. are doing in China). The nitty gritty differences between similar implementations are of no interest to them - NEO is good enough for their purposes.

For this simple fact Ethereum will never stand a chance in China - and NEO would never had seen the light of day without government approval and support. The news/rumours abt government clamp down on ICOs in China are not directed at NEO or any future ICOs based on it's contracts - it is simply to get rid of the foreign competition - they don't need anything from the outside (other than people willing to transfer tech know-how).

The lack of a large GitHub community around NEO underlines that it's not a community project - it's a government project.