I don't know which government officials in the communist party thinks this kind of investment will be successful - and it may be short term successful - but you end up paying for it in the long run.
Maybe said gov't official ran a business selling chinese goods on Amazon and used fake reviews to successfully grow the business by pawning off really poorly made products into consumer hands. He/she witnessed the success and applied that theory everywhere - you can always buy your way to a good impression.
Well, it works (kinda) on Amazon because the blame and outrage still gets created, its just that there's no entity to ascribe the blame onto. The store is usually brandless, or can rebrand itself in an instant if things go south.
BUT the blame just doesn't dissipate into thin air. No, it gets assigned to the first thing that does have a permanent brand - Chinese goods. And then, chinese culture.
The US tried to use covert tactics in the 70s - 90s during the cold war era, in many places including the middle east. It was a time of naivety where "I can get away with doing illegal and immoral stuff" was an infectious attitude. Fast forward 30 years, and the winners are the people who immediately benefitted from those actions, but the losers (the AMERICAN GOV'T AND PUBLIC) are still paying the price via terrorism in the form of extra defense costs, safety concerns, tragedies and more.
Again - blame and resentment doesn't disappear into thin air. It collects, like pollution, and you pay a price a long way down the road.
China, you're not an anonymous store on Amazon. You're one of the strongest brands in the world with 5000 years of history. Your brand is larger than Amazon, Twitter, Facebook, and Google combined. This is just not worth it.