You post about a difficult issue--that of legal intelligence gathering. The first issue concerns imaging satellites flown over a soverign nation's land. Nations "own" the airspace over their territory, but traditionally, no entity "owns" space orbits. Thus, any nation can fly over any other with spacecraft, such as satellites. Generally, it's considered poor form to shoot at or otherwise harm another nation's satellite, but you must admit that, when the object of that satellite is to spy on your country, you might be tempted, no? Of note, from my reading of the story, it appears that our satellite was temporarily blinded by the laser, but not otherwise harmed. So it could be argued that what the Chinese were doing was jamming the satellite's receptors, more than actually harming it. We've done the same to Cuba for 4 decades.
You also mention the EP-3 incident near Hainan Island. Recall the facts of the case: our intelligence gathering platform was flying--albeit in international airspace--within 70 miles of the Chinese coast, gathering intelligence. What would most Americans say if a Chinese aircraft were doing the same to us? That EP-3 collided with a Chinese fighter jet sent to intercept it. Whose fault was the collision? We don't know. Our EP-3, damaged in the collision, flew to Hainan Island--Chinese territory--voluntarily and without obtaining prior permission. The crew was held by the Chinese for approximately two weeks before being released--after, I'm sure, the Chinese went over everything of any possible use in our aircraft.
In all fairness, if the same had happened, and a foreign intelligence gathering platform had landed in U.S. territory, would we have done much different?
