Remove the nationality labels, and the country labels, and the time period, and this is a revealing study of the problems of nation-state governments, with strong military, corporate and political interests, dealing with the nature of human skills and knowledge specialisation, and the international and global benefits of science, and the collaborative frameworks that are necessary to make it work.
The paranoid and competitive security departments of nation states, don’t understand the nature of scientific work, the unity and consilience of physical and biological reality, and the limits of human understanding, culture and communication. The various political powers tend to mirror each other in their social organisation behaviours. Tit for tat is real, on many levels. Whatever bad the USA says of China, and does to Chinese nationals, will be mirrored with the labels all reversed in China. Unless of course, some deep social science training is required of the political staffers in the middle layers of national security bureaucracies, which actually need scientific advice and advisers to the same level of competence and breadth, as the science communication they are supposedly policing. Paranoia tends to reflect lack of real knowledge, by assuming the worst.
This is a positive feedback process. Paranoia and district create social, system and individual stressed biology. Stress in individuals creates stupidity, and more paranoia. General paranoia in military and corporate contestants produces weapon buildups, and vast arrays of planning scenarios for physical conflict. And it is all mirrored between the nations with direct and indirect resource conflicts at many levels.
It will all end in great tragedy, as any students of history probably realise, another knowledge deficit that is accentuated by systems stress.
The scientists who really represent some of the best minds and understanding achievable on this planet, ought to be given more respect, for their lifetime dedication. The political apparatchiks, to whom is given far too much power and discretion, are the ones most need of supervision and constraint, and need a far better education in conflict and human systems stress reduction, instead of stresses acceleration.
Treating scientists like common criminals demonstrates large scale unawareness of our large scale human systems.
The result of any gross acceleration of systems stresses by positive feedbacks, is of course, a systems complete breakdown.
Some research ought to be done, on how other countries manage foreign scientific collaboration and science professionals immigration.
Perhaps Russia and China are managing their rivalry, and exchange of science personal, in a better productive relationship. After all, human societies are social organisms, and much of the best work comes from the requirements of communication and collaboration. The USA looks like it is failing badly, since it doesn’t want to get on well with anyone. A determination to increase global unhappiness is likely to succeed at producing more collaboration between all the others who wish to avoid the impacts of a global social outcast. What an honourable but stupid global sacrifice the USA is making!