Is this known for a fact? I thought the bat angle was more a most likely scenario but not proven.

No, Chinese markets generally don't sell bat meat or eat bats.

They eat lots of animals but bats are not one of them. (I'm sure there is a village in China where they do eat bats. It is a big country.)

The photos you see online of Chinese people eating bats are Tourist in the Pacific.

Correct, Chinese markets generally don't sell such things. I know, I'm Chinese ;)

But this particular part of China does. It's more a subculture derived from one of the minority groups in that province, but it's there.

Never heard about such a thing. Sounds like some sort of conspiracy theory unless you have concrete proof of that.

The original hypothesis was that some other animal sold at the market acted as an intermediate host between bat and human, just like the case in 2003 SARS, but this is also not proven.

Conspiracy theory has a specific meaning. Their claim might be false but even if this is the case they are not implying the existence of any conspiracy.