I know its a belated response, but I suspect that the xenophobia/sinophobia around China is based around an existential panic about the social decline and relevance of Western power, and a need for a scapegoat for said decline.

The panic and scapegoating against China (PRC) ramped up in 2016/17, around the first year of the Trump campaign/administration, as a way to explain why deindustrialization, capital flight, and the labor markets had shifted from producing things to a service economy.

Then came the anger against China's market/government regulating content such as movies, video games, and sports in their own domestic market, compelling these industries to self-censor to regain access to the PRC's market.

This was an insight that the Western/US market and customer pool didn't have as much pull or influence as they once did, and somewhat "downgraded" in terms of being catered to. I say downgraded, when it means Americans/Europeans now share the same platforms and audience with consumers in the East.

Then came Covid-19, which was thought to be sourced from China, which then Western governments prioritized the viability and health of the market over their own people, leading to hundreds of thousands dying from Covid to satisfy and appease the line god free market.

Covid exacerbated the underlying symptoms of decline in the West (US-US allied nations), and rather than try to seek redress against the society that abandoned them, people are seeking a scapegoat for this and the government is giving them China.

I assume that the government is looking to China as its new enemy as a way to justify military buildup/contracting, and probably hoping to break China up - like they did the USSR - for the same purposes of buying up properties, industries, labor pools in China on the cheap through a shock doctrine.