It's a classical (and, in this case, fortunate) case of wrong incentive structure. People who direct these propaganda campaigns are not rewarded by polling Americans for their perception of China. Presumably, they are rewarded by their superiors looking at beautifully curated Powerpoint slides.

You don't want to be the guy accused of using an expression that can be interpreted as China conceding $(some utterly inconsequential point). Guess how they will behave.

* That said, I'm sure some brilliant minds inside CCP already know this and are working on improving their methodology ...