It's a Schrödinger's false-flag! Just incompetent enough to look like a false flag. But at the same time, it's coming from the heart of US bureaucracy, which finds cash to build multi-billion dollar hidden data centers, but is also inflexible enough properly pay for overtime and off-schedule work.
I don't find the money inexplicable at all. Building multi-billion dollar data centers increases wealth for billionaires but paying overtime would benefit a middle-class pleb.
Honestly they might also totally not care about it. They might want to avoid detection while the hack is working but what is the point of covering their tracks after the thing is discovered?
It's not like China will sue them, and not like both sides can easily say that it is just reciprocal.
It seems like such a lapse in tradecraft that, absent other indicators, I would just assume it's a crude false flag attempt.