everything you said is so true!! I couldn't put it all together before but you're right that japanese media has an underlying implication of an imperialism that is very palatable to the west especially compared to chinese media...(not very familiar with korean media!) like, way more white people are willing and comfortable to engage with anime than ever read a danmei novel, and the ones that do read danmei often have kind of... I can't put my finger on it, but Weird Attitudes...
it's the kind of Weird Attitude that's like, the assumption chinese takeout 🥡 places serve Authentic Chinese Cuisine™️ as if the fortune cookie isn't a california invention 🥠 (also how much of a monolith do they think china is!! there's so much regional cuisine...)
I read a ton of (translated) chinese danmei webnovels and it's just an incredibly vivid and irreplicable landscape even within the singular genre of "danmei" that can't be captured just by what's been cunningly licensed by the english publishing industry to appeal to (white) americans because there's definitely a phenomenon where white americans can self-insert into anime protagonists in a way they can't fudge the default with chinese characters who are in every way shape and form "unforgettably and unerringly chinese."
something something the game honor of kings (which mainly features characters from the romance of the three kingdoms, ex. kongming and zhou yu and other chinese lore like daji) dominates the moba landscape across every country in the world Except for usa, where there's silently a vague discomfort about it being "too chinese to forget" unlike the dominant moba, league of legends and related games
I think one of the roots of sinophobia in usa is the racial discomfort of threatening your position as an american of being "the center of the world" ie the ultimate colonizer. it's related to the decentralization when english monolingual americans become extremely defensive and uncomfortable when you delocate them from the assumption "to speak at all is to of course speak english" by the description of "english speakers" because of english language imperialism preferring to imply english is the most superior (and most human) language and naturally is the tongue all humans should speak, and it's pitiful and disgusting when non-white immigrants open their filthy mouths to speak "bad english" as if bad english makes you a bad person, not even to mention the vast majority of native english speakers remain monolingual their entire lives.
in my toxic yuri game prince swallow contains a lot of the chinese idioms I've picked up over time and the (summarized) statement that "over 1000 years the intrinsic nature of empire hasn't changed, they've just changed the names" ie. they're have always been kings.
it's really great to hear your insights