Actually there is evidence that these researches hid their ties to China/foreign governments, that's kinda what the article is about. Requiring disclosure of foreign ties is hardly a new or controversial procedure in democracies or dictatorships.

Calling it "racist" is baseless, nonintellectual deflection, as is "well dictatorships do it, so we shouldn't!". Dictatorships also collect taxes and fund their military, should we stop doing those things too?

If you're not part of the 50 cent army you certainly are taking pains to sound like it, because your arguments have ~50 cents of effort behind them.