USA has banned the export of some EDA software from Cadence/Synopsys to China.

Therefore the export-control laws of USA obviously make illegal the export of "thoughts".

An even more clear example if that any US citizen who knows classified information or even just a trade secret of some private company and who would tell that information to China would do something illegal.

In this case China argues that the IP has been created in China and its transfer to Singapore does not make it eligible for transfer to USA.

This is the same argument that USA has used multiple times in the past, e.g. for forbidding ASML to sell equipment to China and for forbidding TSMC to have Chinese customers for its advanced fabrication nodes, despite the fact that in both cases the IP that originated in USA some time ago was only a very small part of the products sold by those companies.

If USA may do this, then China is certainly also entitled to do the same. This is not whataboutism, but both countries must be treated equally, either such actions should be forbidden for both under the international laws, or they should be permitted both to do whatever they please.

There is absolutely no doubt that USA is the country who has invented this concept that its laws can be applied outside its territory and they can be applied to things that are the property of non-US entities, as long as they have any component, no matter how small, which has originally been sold to them, directly or indirectly, by an US entity.

I consider any legal interpretation of this kind as abusive and ridiculous, but no American may criticize a foreign country that does nothing else except imitate what USA does.