White collar criminals almost exclusively break laws in their own line of business... because that's what they do.

Its closer to "food seller, indicted for selling otherwise legal food to people the government randomly decided are unable to eat"

Right, that is how embargo's and other similar restrictions work all over the world.

Kind of like "Gun seller, indicted for selling otherwise legal guns to people the government randomly decide are unable to buy guns"

Your particular point of view decides if it's random or not.

It's not at all a similar analogy, and you know it. China is a threat. I assume you personally don't care about it, but it is in our interests that it does not dominate the AI industry.

China is a threat, if you live in Taiwan. They lack the ability to project force any further than that. You pin down IR guys on this issue they eventually relent and suggest actually the biggest issue with China is that their claimed zone of control includes a lot of ocean trade routes. But honestly, Xi has been better for international trade than any US admin in the last 15 years, I don't see them doing anything but protecting it. They are like 100 times less threatening than the USA, and that was before president tantrum, who has acted (quite recently) to destabilize global trade.