The one you're replying to sounds like sarcasm to me. Or a very ironic comment given the comment it's replying to. It's hard to tell.
A post about Putin and the CCP exploiting US domestic political turmoil: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25830075
A book recommendation by a longtime China-skeptical writer: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25843422 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gertz)
My personal preference is for a HN community where dissenting views don’t lead to assigning ulterior motives (in this case being paid to shill for the CCP) to our debating “opponents”.