What is the cause of the persistent fear of the Chinese in the United States? Why does it seem to be getting worse?

I am Chinese, although I was born in the US. I don't get it. We're just not that different culturally. I don't understand why there is so much hostility towards Chinese people. I am very aware that the big media corporations in China are pretty tightly controlled by the government, but I don't know enough about it to know why that's a problem for the US. <br><br>I can't think of anything about China that causes harm to the average American. I don't think culture or language or food is an issue with most Americans. Does anyone believe that China is going to invade the United States? That seems like a completely stupid thing to think, and I have heard many people express that idiotic sentiment out loud in public, usually in the form of a racist joke, but not always loud or as a joke. I don't know what people think China will do to the US. I think the relationship between the US and China is one of mutual commerce.<br><br>I've been pretty lucky and haven't been the recipient of too much racism in my life. The worst was a man in a big truck yelling racial slurs at me on the street, but when I was younger it was common for people to ask where I was from (not in a nice way, usually with disgust or anger), and when I would tell them that I was from where ever I was from in the United States, they would inevitably ask again with more disgust and anger, "no, where are you *really* from?" I don't know how this would not be considered harassment. How would someone even defend that? "I was just asking where he was from." Well, why were you asking that? What does that even mean? How does knowing where someone was born have any relevance to how you should treat them? Why ask that question twice. <br><br>Obviously, things have only gotten worse under Trump, and I don't think that his term has ended yet since nothing has really changed after Biden was elected.<br><br>Edit: No one has addressed the core issue of this post. The chinese people are not that culturally different from Americans. There is a large amount of shared culture. And there is no logical reason to believe that China will invade the United States. Is the problem just that the chinese government is authoritarian? How does this affect the average american?