The whole point of inserting malicious hardware for shadowy intelligence-related reasons is that you do it either out of government coercion or via government funding.
I don't know why it's so implausible that Chinese intelligence is using the Chinese tech industry to carry out their operations when American intelligence uses the American tech industry to carry out their operations. Nobody said PRISM was fake news because why would Apple and Google and Facebook invest in it; the actual investment came from NSA and the cooperation of these companies is via top secret FISA warrants. China doesn't even need to maintain the pretense of legality that the NSA does.
Again, I don't think the Bloomberg story by itself is credible anymore, but I also don't think it's as implausible as you are making it sound.
I don't know why it's so implausible that Chinese intelligence is using the Chinese tech industry to carry out their operations when American intelligence uses the American tech industry to carry out their operations. Nobody said PRISM was fake news because why would Apple and Google and Facebook invest in it; the actual investment came from NSA and the cooperation of these companies is via top secret FISA warrants. China doesn't even need to maintain the pretense of legality that the NSA does.
Again, I don't think the Bloomberg story by itself is credible anymore, but I also don't think it's as implausible as you are making it sound.