Tend to agree with the” firsts” for China in relation to all the findings. As already pointed out China appears to be doing its own thing. Why was the ship outside the search area and if it was transiting would it not be quicker to do so without a towed array or can it detect without a towed array.
Conspiracy well yes but not really. Would you wish to reveal just how good your radar etc was. I guess coming from a culture that when you are told, by Government, something you just believe it your mind set is that this is how other cultures operate. So it possibly would be expected that if a ship was operating outside the search area and it was just there cause it just was would not raise questions in this culture.