I am also shocked. Especially hearing the same BS talking points I see right now in US politics attacking credibility of news. No, reporters don't make up sources and an anonymous source reported by a big institution !== 'might as well be made up' as someone already commented in this thread.

I would love to see some research on accounts and comments on HN similar to Twitter analysis post 16. Seems to me any time China is broached the HN thread gets more comments than average. Many posts read to me as strongly defensive or taking straw man/obfuscation type tactics.

But then again that could be personal bias I don't know the actual human composition of HN comments - which is why I would love to see some research on HN comments/accounts.

With Iraqs WMDs stories the officials, not the reporters, lied. Also there were quite a few stories, backed by anonymous sources from the intelligence apparatus who were very critical about the official line and the pressure that they were put under to produce corroborating evidence.

I am not saying the reporters lied, however they were relying on "anonymous sources", just like they do here and the sources had an agenda.

Could be the case here as well. Might not be, but there certainly would be a motive for it, (trade war).

This is exactly why I am skeptical. Every detail in this story is plausible, but at whole it is just improbable.

For a prior see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BadBIOS

Well, I would suggest you to keep an open mind that media can lie for profit/political reasons.