Also remember that billions of dollars have been explicitly assigned by US legislation in the last couple of years for what is, basically, propaganda: the 2021

Also remember that billions of dollars have been explicitly assigned by US legislation in the last couple of years for what is, basically, propaganda: the 2021 Strategic Competition Act gives $300 million per year for 4 years, the COMPETES act gives another $500 million. I don't know if you can say where it goes exactly, but just bear in mind that there is at a billion dollars' worth of anti-China stuff sloshing about somewhere in "the media" that was funded directly, and purposefully, from Congress, and who knows how much from less direct sources.