Last week I wrote a semi-serious essay concerning the reason for all the anti-China propaganda lately. I was surprised to see people internalize the question.
Your opposition to the rule or policies of the Communist Party of China is irrelevant to TPTB.

For 4,000 years the Chinese people have had authoritarian governments, and in all that time no foreign nation has ever given a sh*t about the Chinese workers (except to make things worse), and no foreign nation ever will. The question is why all the anti-China propaganda NOW?
As Jim put it: "it does seem like China is this season’s Russia as far as a ”Monster Abroad” goes."

I think that I have an answer to that question now, and it has to do with the U.S. dollar.
I've written about the de-dollarization trend in Asia for years (examples here, here, and here). The situation is coming to a head.

“Major movers” such as China, Russia and the European Union have a strong “motivation to de-dollarize,” said Korin, co-director at the energy and security think tank, on Wednesday.

“We don’t know what’s going to come next, but what we do know is that the current situation is unsustainable,” Korin said. “You have a growing club of countries — very powerful countries.”

“The dollar is our currency, but it’s your problem.”
- John Connally, President Richard Nixon's Treasury secretary, 1971

The rise in tensions with Russia closely tracked their de-dollarization.
The past couple of months China has been moving more quickly toward de-dollarization.

Amid the financial markets meltdown around the world due to the Covid-19 pandemic, China’s central bank—People's Bank of China (PBoC)—has reportedly introduced a trial of homegrown digital currency across four cities, including Shenzhen, Suzhou and Chengdu, and more importantly, upsetting the fragile ceasefire in the trade war between Beijing and Washington...
Some experts are of the opinion that the digital yuan could give China firepower to challenge the dominance of the US dollar. The digital yuan may play a crucial strategic role in China’s ongoing efforts to emerge as a major global financial superpower and compete with the American dollar as the world’s number one reserve currency. Furthermore, they believe that some Asian nations may use the Chinese digital currency for buying crude oil from Iran, because of the curbs imposed by the US make it difficult for Iran to accept payments in dollars.

"China’s new digital currency will definitely pose a threat to the dollar’s supremacy as an international means of payment. Also, the misgivings related to security, privacy and governance about the Chinese digital telecom companies and Apps will need to be addressed. The US needs to come up with its digital currency fast," observes Madhu Vij, professor of international business at Faculty of Management Studies, University of Delhi.

I don't think that China's new digital currency is that important, but it is another weapon against dollar hegemony. China’s proposed digital currency bypasses the Western banking system, including SWIFT, the Belgium-based Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication.
Chinese government workers in these cities will receive at least a portion of their paychecks in the form of a digital payment.

Several news reports mentioned that the America-based companies including McDonald’s and Starbucks have agreed to be part of the trial.

Last week’s China Daily report said: “A sovereign digital currency provides a functional alternative to the dollar settlement system and blunts the impact of any sanctions or threats of exclusion both at a country and company level."

"[The dollar] is by far the most dominant currency anywhere in the world, and it will always stay that way."
- President Trump, 2019

China is in some ways being forced to de-dollarize or bend the knee because China, along with Russia and Turkey, were not included in the coordinated central bank swap line enhancements.

In the past decade, it has signed its own currency swap deals with more than 30 central banks to support the settlement of yuan, as well as taken measures to gradually open up its capital markets to foreign investors.
But the Chinese currency’s international use remains very low because the yuan is not seen as a safe haven investment alternative to the US dollar and is far less liquid. Beijing continues to impose draconian capital controls on its citizens that restrict them from taking money out of the country, while the yuan’s exchange rate remains mostly non-convertible.

This means it is difficult to see an end to US dollar dominance underpinning global financing conditions in the absence of a more rapid progress of yuan internationalisation, said Charles Dumas, chief economist at TS Lombard.

That is all true. China's many efforts to de-dollarize have had little to show for them so far because the yuan is not seen as a safe haven investment alternative to the US dollar.
And that's where this story would end...then the virus hit and everything changed.

When the Financial Times claimed China's $13 trillion (€11.7 trillion) onshore bond market had become "an unlikely sanctuary," some eye brows were raised. Given the timing and scale of the COVID-19 impact on China's economy, few expected it.

But become one it has...Foreign investors remain a small percentage of the $13 trillion market, at 2.3%, compared with the United States' 28%, much of it Chinese-owned, but this is changing.

Foreign money is flowing into China during a global financial crisis.
That is HHUUUGGGEEE! That is a game changer.
Yes, it isn't a lot so far, but it only became possible a couple years ago.

The increase in foreign inflows into the Chinese bond market since mid-2017 has also been in part due to the inclusion of Chinese bonds on major benchmark indices and in particular after the launch in 2017 of the Bond Connect program, which allows foreign investors to trade in mainland China's bond markets through Hong Kong without an onshore trading entity.

"The opening up of onshore interbank bond market to international investors in recent years, notably with the China Interbank Bond Market Direct in 2016 and Bond Connect in 2017, enabled them to increase their exposures in RMB-denominated assets," Jessie Tung, VP-Sr Credit Officer at Moody's Investors Service, said.

If the dollar stops being a reserve currency, then our trillion dollar deficits suddenly matter, and our empire becomes unaffordable.