In order to understand why this conflation is occurring, you need to understand chinese culture. Chinese culture is very different in some fundamental ways that's hard for western countries to understand. First of all, the people in China are trained from a very early age to think of themselves as indistinguishable from their country and their government. There literally is no concept of self in China. People are tauhgt to think of themselves as completely the same as their government. this is a fundamental viewpoint of how the chinese see themselves. This of course allows the PRC to do whatever it wants without any complaints from the people because any thoughts against the PRC is tantamount to being anti-chinese. Thus when chinese people see anything that goes against the PRC they take it as a personal insult to themselves. The PRC has influenced their people to regard any idea that goes against the PRC as racism towards chinese.