Russiaphobia was total nonsense (and a contributing red pill) for two reasons:
1. The Left were the ones whining about McCarthyism the loudest. Arthur Miller's The Crucible, anyone?
2. By definition, former-Soviet states are second world powers. Anyone who glances at Russia honestly can see that they are a gas station with the GDP of Italy, has stagnant population growth, and has to tard-wrangle Chechnyan Islamists.
Russiagate came from Clinton who held a grudge over the failure of the Russian Reset, where when she offered to reset relations, she held a button that actually meant overload. Obama was no fan of them either when they suddenly annexed Crimea and he couldn't do shit about it. Russia's aims are pretty much pragmatic concerns over securing Moscow and trying to maintain whatever relationships they have over the few allies they have left.
China is different. They are expanding into Africa to get the rare earth minerals necessary to make the smartphones that Silicon Valley sells to the world and shoulder the ecological burdens manufacturing entails. Also, their businessmen are banging African chicks, so if they don't mind half-breeds, it helps alleviate their fucked-up demographics. Their students, upon coming into the US for technical training, observe SJWs in their native habitat. They don't even have to be committing corporate espionage to gain contempt for Diversity & Inclusion. Whether COVID was a fumble or intentional low-yield bioterror attack doesn't matter as it completely destabilized major sections of the US economy and the psychology of the Boomers. Part of how the Soviet Union fell apart was they thought Reagan was building the Star Wars program and tried to compete. China looks at us and see Biden calling their enslavement of the Uyghurs as "a cultural difference." The US was able to present strength in the 80s. I can't say we can present strength now. If anything, the US's fetishization of weakness is now endemic to our culture.