I looked at the principle of claiming that "if you're innocent why hide things". And that's exactly like saying that if you're not breaking the law then you have no reason to hide your communication from authorities because "they'll only look when they suspect something and that would just prove your innocence". If anything, accusing someone and asking them to prove their innocence opens the door to false accusations meant only to force the other side to leak some information. A principle you wouldn't want applied to you isn't a very good one.

This principle applies to individuals, not to the governments. The latter are created by people to serve people and must be open and transparent. The alternative is being corrupt.

> must be open and transparent. The alternative is being corrupt.

I think you oversimplified to get to this binary view. Where does "national security" fit in this "transparent or corrupt" philosophy? State secrets? Classified information and intelligence?

Can the Chinese (or other) authorities simply raise deep concerns about whatever they want and expect US (or other) authorities to provide information as needed to prove the contrary?

I indeed intentionally oversimplified that, but consider how NSA is doing illegal things for the sake of "national security", because they are not tranparent or checked by anyone.