[AaronFriel]

Yes, and/or confirmation bias. There have been articles on the Chinese Road and Belt Initiative and their long-term geopolitical goals for a few years now.

That initiative has only became more newsworthy and pressing as the world's largest economy has turned inward.

[simion314]

The OP used the word frequency, I also noticed that lately we get at least 2 anti China articles on top page, maybe nothing changed on publishing side but the HN voting changed making this anti China articles stick to the top or on the first page a lot.

I don't care enough about it to investigate the numbers of articles on HN with China in title so is all something I noticed and I am not from US (so I have no horse in the trade war)

[chvid]

The current US administration clearly wants to pick a fight with China.

Massive resources are spent manipulating media including social media. And the biggest spenders are the established political parties and governments of the west.

Maybe what you are seeing is just randomness and confirmation bias but as the saying goes just because you are paranoid it does not mean that you are not being followed.