To suggest these memes are the exclusive work of the left is naive. And counter productive.
The defense establishment is constantly inflating the threat from potential adversaries. They take at face value the claims of the Chinese on their weapon systems, uncritically.
And their new systems are always facsimiles of real, US weapons.
But junk.
I think we know their systems are mostly junk but you don’t make money by tauting the opposition has nothing but junk. You have to put the fear of God in to the minds of politicians to get the money rolling in. That and greasing palms.