[crocodiletears]

The intelligence community has been known to direct and cultivate media assets. [0]

Less directly, much of news reporting is dependent upon access to exclusive and sometimes anonymous sources. There's little to prevent some of those sources from being honeypots meant to indirectly manipulate reporters into parroting a given narrative.

Even so, I doubt that antipathy towards China's being driven by any centralized authority. We're entering an era of great power competition with the country, its (ostensible) ideology has historically existed in opposition to the US, and many still see it as the poster-boogyman for the hollowing out of American industries.

There's always been tension, and ever since the Trump administration began imposing tariffs and clamping down against Chinese IP and technology theft, it's incidentally become more present in the public's consciousness.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird