This is a blunt description, but it is largely true. 中华意识/华夷之辨 always has a strong racial/racist component in it, and it has been deeply ingrained in the default mode of thinking of every person born and raised in China who does not have access to an "alternative viewpoint" when they were young.

Took me quite some time to realize it and even more time for painful "detoxification."

The way Chinese society is traditionally organized (i.e., 各人自扫门前雪, 莫管他家瓦上霜) seems to justify that 中华意识 is actually the glue that sticks people together as a nation. Ironically, the West also appears to be going along with a similar trend in recent years, when people's consensus on individual rights and a liberal political process seems to have been replaced by hashtags, labels, bitter crusades, and the "cancel culture."