If you wanted to have a conversation about maintaining scientific collaboration in the midst of great power competition, this seems like the wrong case to build off of.
Finally, I do agree that conversations about China on HN often do go south due to US nationalism.
Real IP theft would look like, say, abducting thousands of German scientists at gunpoint [0], not giving scientists grants to set up labs.
As always, the actual issue is the failure to disclose the possible CoI -- as in the present case.
It sucks, BTW. Turns out the guy was the PhD advisor of my neighbor up the street.
Suppose a professor slacked off on their job by taking a long vacation in France. That would be wrong and deserving of punishment -- but it wouldn't have set off panic over him "selling out" the country. Yet that is what is happening.
The Wen Ho Lee case is a point of reference here - he was accused of the worst kind of espionage and "convicted" after leaks in the NYT - but then the case dissolved and Lee got a big settlement.
All I see is people going "he was dumb to lie about it".
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22176877
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22176830
Of course I found them at the bottom where they belong, so I think knzhou is misreading the prevailing sentiment.