Well, generally speaking, this is exactly the ballpark CIA feels very much at home at and has tons of experience doing exactly this, for last 70+ years.

On the other hand, Chinese involvement would also make sense, but things are too obviously pointing to their direction for my subjective taste.

Maybe its both - US escalating situation just because that's what 3-letter agencies do, China obviously deeply involved since its a crucial place for them and literally their territory, which is rebelling and questioning Chinese supremacy. At the end, these are all just constant games for these folks.

I know you didn't make the original comment, but I'm going to put this one down as "stated as fact, no actual evidence"...

In the Chinese media I've read about this, the CIA usually isn't accused directly. Rather, they cite a Washington Post article [1] where Allen Weinstein, co-founder of the National Endowment for Democracy, says "a lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA." Then they argue that the NED's funding of various political groups in Hong Kong [2] is essentially a CIA operation.

Personally, I think that's a lazy argument trying to link the CIA (known bad) to the NED (therefore also bad). On the other hand, it does mean that US government organizations are picking favorites to provide with funding in order to influence the politics of foreign countries.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1991/09/22/i...

[2] https://www.ned.org/region/asia/hong-kong-china-2018/