Rather than people being wary of Chinese in general, it's more that there is a high degree of government control exercised in China and they are known to be very strategic with long-term planning in regards to technology control both for spying and actual remote control of devices. We are all just looking for the least bad option. It's not like devices from other countries are immune, but they are often less organized so there is a better chance of avoiding the Chinese level of planned access.

It does seem like pretty low risk in this specific case so I agree OP's comment was bit over the top, but I would have no way to make anything resembling even an educated guess as to how far their programs go.