I think it's plausible there's a disinformation campaign behind this strange story and that Bloomberg were the eager dupes.

But unnamed sources are known to the reporters and as "senior national security officials" they should be easy to verify and difficult to fake.

My guess is it's a subgroup of one of the agencies running a relatively independent operation to boost distrust of China. A rather inexperienced or at least incompetent group, based on how awkwardly it's gone over.

(Not that I've come to any conclusions... I think there's more info to come on this.)