It’s not uncommon for ships to have a captain that commands and stays with the ship and a pilot that is familiar with and helps navigate regional waters, who takes over navigation and issues orders in the areas that they are qualified to operate.
I’m not saying that’s what happened here - I don’t know and haven’t seen any information that would support that idea - but it could explain the discrepancy.
Maybe both are true and he has both russian and chinese citizenship
It’s not uncommon for ships to have a captain that commands and stays with the ship and a pilot that is familiar with and helps navigate regional waters, who takes over navigation and issues orders in the areas that they are qualified to operate.
I’m not saying that’s what happened here - I don’t know and haven’t seen any information that would support that idea - but it could explain the discrepancy.