Sucks to have such a retarded Gov. In the case of Chinese-based employees the assumption is that anything they did would go through Chinese Government controll

Sucks to have such a retarded Gov. In the case of Chinese-based employees the assumption is that anything they did would go through Chinese Government controlled networks (there's VPN ban even for foreign businesses) and likely result in your intellectual property being shared with your Chinese-based competitors. Not to mention their access being potentially compromised and used. If an Australian-based employee complied with a letter, they could destroy your business reputation when it got out, even if you threw them under the bus. Probably the main reason Australian employees are still given latitude is that committing compromised code into the codebase would require involving everyone who could possibly see that code change.