Which comports with my statements of kid glove treatment. PRC did not want your associate in the country, invited them to drink tea and then booted them out of the country aka the opposite of hostage risk. Are some fields subject to increased national security scrutiny? Sure but arbiturary detention risk is rarely on the cards vs getting kicked out. No different from US booting out PRC academics/students for association with defense connected/adjacent institutes. Even IP espionage does not detain people to give up goods since that’s counter productive, i.e. thousand talent program works only if targets come to PRC willingly. And they do, because the risk of detainment is virtually non-existent hence the US gov has to deter via shenanigan like China Initiative to disincentivize people to people exchanges. It's not the prospect of PRC punishment but the reward that fuels their indy espionage efforts and why the west is playing up arbitrary detention risk.

The US also doesn't show evidence for PRC nationals prosecuted for photographing sensitive infra. They're not releasing said photos, only allegations/prosecutions because of course not. And per script PRC MFA will deny and claim they're just tourists with bad english who can't read signage. That's how the game is played. Choosing to not believe PRC is assuming the default position that western spies aren't operating or if they are, are never caught which we already know not to be true per CIA debacle. At the end of the day damning quack like a duck associations are as good as these scenarios will permit. And in Michaels case, involve literal people with acknowledged intelligence backgrounds. which is close to smoking gun threshold. Obviously we'll disagree but I choose to believe a surveillance state with a proven record of counterintelligence is good at surveilling.