I live in Europe. China is often hard to understand and seen as a monolithic block. In Poland if something doesn't make any sense it's common to say "it's Chinese to me". The language, especially the characters, is probably the biggest barrier. I vaguely know that China contains a bunch of peoples and languages, regions with distinct cultures. But very little beyond that.

People fear what they don't understand. I think you could make a difference if you made it easier for outsiders to learn about China and Chinese. You don't need to start a blog or a youtube channel. Just point out some existing ones which give foreigners a decent idea about China. Or maybe some movies which illustrate (aspects of) China pretty well and are still accessible to typical Westerners. No, it won't work for people on the street. I don't have a solution for that.