Honestly, given that non-autistic people murder their own autistic children or abuse them into acting “normal,” what they say about empathy is rather a joke. Plenty of them fail to empathize with autistic people or even people in general.
It’s possible that what they call “empathy” is actually just being similar enough to other people to have similar and therefore understandable desires and experiences. They will also fake their way through social interactions for various reason, so what seems like empathetic behavior may not be motivated by actual empathy.
Plenty of non-autistic people are xenophobes, bullies, and violent offenders, so I don’t see them as particularly empathetic; therefore there’s no point in comparing autistic people to non-autistic people in terms of empathy.
Also, people don’t know what’s happening in other people’s minds: an autistic person could experience empathy without anyone knowing because the feelings aren’t expressed, or not expressed in a way that other people recognize.