Beijing Bytes: US-China Tech War Updates

This is your Beijing Bytes: US-China Tech War Updates podcast.

Listeners, Ting here, your byte-sized portal into all things China, cyber shenanigans, and the digital duels shaping our world. No time to warm up—major sparks have flown in the US-China tech war the past two weeks, so buckle up.

Let’s start hot with the breaking Microsoft SharePoint cyber drama. According to both CBS News and Microsoft, state-backed Chinese threat groups Linen Typhoon and Violet Typhoon breached several US government agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security and the National Institutes of Health, by exploiting an unpatched SharePoint vulnerability. Microsoft says these attackers even managed to deploy ransomware before the patch landed. The cyber fireworks triggered multi-agency responses—CISA was patching and locking everything down around the clock. Microsoft, caught with its pants down, issued urgent security updates, while the White House gamed out worst-case scenarios. No evidence (so far) of stolen data from Homeland Security, but NIH and Defense Intelligence had several hours of SharePoint blackout—never a good look.

Meanwhile, Microsoft found itself in yet another DC doghouse. After a ProPublica expose, the tech giant scrambled to end its long-running practice of using China-based engineers for US government cloud systems—even for the Pentagon! The Defense Secretary called this an unacceptable risk, and now Microsoft’s sweeping the decks industry-wide. The company is reviewing whether it needs even tighter controls—because, apparently, digital escorts for foreign engineers weren’t cutting it. This is amplifying the debate: can you really safeguard American government data if it's being serviced from Hangzhou? The policy blowback looks set to ripple into future contracts and cloud trust.

Now, let’s talk hardware—because what’s hotter than AI chip smuggling? Despite the Biden-Trump pivot in export controls, Nvidia H100, H200, and yes, the turbocharged B200 chips worth over $1 billion were smuggled into China since April, reports from Reuters and TechCrunch reveal. These chips, blacklisted by Washington, miraculously appeared in Shanghai and Shenzhen data centers via indirect supply chains—mostly through Southeast Asia’s Swiss cheese enforcement. Nvidia disavows these sales, warning buyers about technical headaches and zero warranty, but the damage is done. Chips banned one day show up on Taobao the next, igniting a regulatory panic.

In response to this enforcement fail, the US is now expected to tighten export rules again this fall—possibly even pressuring allies like Thailand and Malaysia to clamp down on rerouted shipments. The Nvidia H20 chip ban was even briefly reversed to allow legal exports, especially after Trump’s trade talks with Xi Jinping hinted export controls could be used as bargaining chips in broader negotiations. Still, the B200 ban sticks, and tech supply chains stay in limbo. US firms and trading partners are now caught in

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This is your Beijing Bytes: US-China Tech War Updates podcast.

You’re plugged back into Beijing Bytes with me, Ting—your navigator through the zeroes and ones of the US-China tech war, where the only thing more volatile than chip prices is the policy ping-pong across the Pacific. Let’s skip the boot screen and dive straight into the latest data flood.

Just this week, US agencies were scrambling thanks to the finest in Chinese hacking innovation. Microsoft and Bloomberg have named names: Linen Typhoon, Violet Typhoon, and Storm-2603 are all groups tied to Beijing, and they used a nasty zero-day vulnerability in SharePoint to poke holes in American government servers, including a lateral scan of the National Nuclear Security Administration. The Department of Energy says impacts were ‘minimal’—cyber lingo for ‘we dodged the big one’—but the breach underscores how even with all the patching in the world, you’re only as safe as your next undiscovered flaw.

While American agencies were restoring their backups, news broke that the Trump administration reversed the famous AI chip ban, giving Nvidia and AMD the OK to peddle their tailored H20 and MI308 chips to China. In April, these same chips were enemy tech non grata, so industry folks are calling this ‘policy whiplash.’ Why the sudden about-face? Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is playing some 5D chess with Beijing, tying the chip sales to rare earth minerals negotiations. Turns out, those shiny AI chips are a lot less useful without the rare metals that China practically has on speed-dial.

Congress, however, is in full ‘red alert’ mode. Representative John Moolenaar’s sounded the klaxons, warning that letting Chinese firms like DeepSeek bulk up on H20 chips turbocharges Beijing’s AI sector—letting their AI rivals pull closer to the US, both economically and, maybe, militarily. Moolenaar’s logic: every advance in China’s generative AI is a future threat to American tech hegemony.

Policy gets whiplashier still. Trump’s freshly minted AI Action Plan talks a big game on protecting chip tech but dodges the details—no sign yet of hard enforcement methods or coordination strategies with tech giants or international allies. The plan hints at new approaches like chip location verification and clamping down not just on whole chips but the bits and bobs that make cutting-edge processors run. So, yes, the future holds more executive orders, more ambiguous guidelines, and plenty of room for interpretation.

Industry’s reaction? Nvidia, AMD, and EDA software vendors like Synopsys and Cadence are popping the champagne—they just recovered a revenue stream and market access that Wall Street thought was lost. On the flip side, US hawks fear these concessions grease China’s path to self-reliance in AI hardware, putting America’s current edge at risk.

Strategically, there’s an arms race not just in hardware, but in innovation theft. The US Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property claims as much

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This is your Beijing Bytes: US-China Tech War Updates podcast.

Hey listeners, it's Ting! Buckle up for today’s Beijing Bytes, where your favorite tech whisperer wraps up a wild fortnight in the ongoing US-China tech chess match. The weather in Washington is hot and steamy—and the news in cyber and semis is even hotter.

Right out of the gates: a plot twist no one saw coming. July delivered a rare ceasefire in the infamous chip war. After years of exports bans piling higher than my overdue code reviews, the US actually dialed things back. On July 3, President Trump’s administration suddenly lifted a ban on vital chip design software sales to China, undoing a move that rattled EDA goliaths like Synopsys and Cadence. Their stock popped instantly—and for one golden moment, analysts dared to praise a “small ceasefire” between Washington and Beijing. Not to be outdone, the US greenlit Nvidia to resume some advanced AI chip sales to China, just months after a blanket ban choked off the last pipeline. Traders on Wall Street cheered, but Capitol Hill? Far less amused. John Moolenaar, chair of the House Select Committee on China, fired off a warning that selling Nvidia’s H20 chips could “provide substantial increase to China’s AI development”—which, translation, means sleepless nights for US national security hawks.

What’s the game here? Simple: negotiation. Beijing responded by softening its rare earth embargo, and the two giants have opened up high-level trade talks. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent claimed, “trade is in a good place,” hinting at more pragmatic—if fragile—tech diplomacy ahead. Yet, don’t get comfy. Deep distrust lingers. Congress is actively debating outbound investment curbs for US money into Chinese AI and semiconductors, and new strategic export controls are popping up among US allies like the Netherlands. Meanwhile in Beijing, the foreign ministry keeps railing against “tech containment,” doubling down on self-reliance and blasting what it calls the “weaponization” of science and technology.

Now let’s click over to cybersecurity—a truly nail-biting few weeks, if you’re running on-prem SharePoint. Microsoft and CISA urgently warned that hackers are exploiting a critical flaw, ToolShell, letting them waltz through SharePoint servers globally. Dozens of government and energy orgs breached, including at least two US federal agencies—ouch. Google’s Threat Intelligence Group spotted attackers planting web shells and yoinking cryptographic secrets. Recommendation: patch yesterday, assume you’re breached, investigate everything. Microsoft also faced flak after journalists revealed that China-based engineers were working on tech used by the US Department of Defense. Frank Shaw from Microsoft hastily declared: no more China-based teams on Pentagon projects, effective immediately.

Meanwhile, across the globe, China-linked hacker group APT41 embarked on fresh cyber espionage campaigns in Africa, leveraging, you guessed it, compromised Sha

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This is your Beijing Bytes: US-China Tech War Updates podcast.

Hey listeners, it’s Ting here with Beijing Bytes, your favorite byte-sized download on the US-China tech war—served with a heaping side of cyber drama and predictive analytics. Buckle up, because the past two weeks have been pure cyberpunk chaos, strategic backflips, and boardroom palpitations from Beijing to Silicon Valley.

Let’s get to the pulse: shocker of July—Washington blinked first. On July 3rd, after months of shadowboxing, the Biden-Trump tag team axed a hard ban on exporting chip design software—yes, those precious EDA tools—back to China. Synopsys and Cadence shareholders did their happy dance as stock prices rocketed, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called it a “distinct warming of relations.” Ten days later, the U.S. greenlit limited AI chip sales—Nvidia’s H20s are back on Chinese order sheets, upending months of “no chips for you” rhetoric. U.S. leaders framed it as a leverage move, tied to China easing its rare earth chokehold, but critics in Congress fear this will rocket China’s AI ambitions. NVIDIA’s expecting $15 billion in China sales for the rest of the year—every dollar a bet that Beijing doesn’t sprint ahead in AI while staying hooked to U.S. silicon.

Now, scratch the surface and it’s not all sunshine. The Congressional technology hawks—looking at you, Rep. John Moolenaar—are not buying the détente. They warn these “second-tier” chips, though technically compliant, might turbocharge Chinese military AI. Meanwhile President Xi’s camp still accuses Washington of “malicious blockade”—they’re not exactly passing the peace pipe at Zhongnanhai. The Dutch and Japanese are quietly locking down advanced chip tool exports, and the rare earth quotas? China made its first 2025 announcement, quietly expanding its embargo playbook and reducing transparency. European and American manufacturers are sweating, as supply chains hedge with added costs and new delays.

Let’s talk cyber—if you thought the hackers were on summer break, think again. July saw six mega-incidents burst onto the scene. Ivanti Connect Secure devices got shredded by zero-days, CrushFTP bugs are being pounded, and a nasty Nvidia AI Toolkit container escape flaw is sending cloud admins scrambling. Even the retail ransomware gangs shifted targets, moving from healthcare to big-box stores—because, apparently, cybercrime follows the money and the patches.

And APT41—the notorious China-linked hacking crew—just launched an audacious espionage spree in Africa. Their tool of choice? Hacked SharePoint servers as covert control centers. This isn’t 1990s malware—these folks blend living-off-the-land tactics and Cobalt Strike into a grand tour of undetectable pivots, exfiltrating valuable creds with a surgical touch. Meanwhile, Microsoft had to emergency-release SharePoint patches after a zero-day let attackers burrow deep inside government and corporate systems.

For U.S. and multinational companies operating i

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This is your Beijing Bytes: US-China Tech War Updates podcast.

Listeners, this is Ting on Beijing Bytes, and wow, what a two weeks! The US-China tech war has been everything but boring — think sanctions flip-flops, hackers doing somersaults through telecom hardware, and backroom deals worthy of a cyberpunk drama.

Let’s talk hackiness first, because no tech war update is complete without some state-sponsored shenanigans. The Chinese group best known as Salt Typhoon has gone full throttle, targeting “edge” devices at major telecoms like Comcast, South Africa’s MTN Group, and South Korea’s LG Uplus since February. Their specialty? Slipping into routers and switches on the edge, then using that foothold to try and worm into the core systems. Security researchers at Recorded Future say these attacks are usually about cyber-espionage — sniffing around for sensitive information or communications networks, sometimes even chasing juicy political targets. US officials have called out Salt Typhoon before, especially for their 2024 campaign targeting then-presidential candidate Donald Trump’s communications. As always, attribution is a diplomatic minefield; China’s embassy spox Liu Pengyu basically threw down the “prove it!” card and called for “responsible characterization” of hacks.

Not to be outdone, multiple China-aligned groups like UNK_FistBump and UNK_SparkyCarp — fantastic names, by the way — dialed up attacks on Taiwan’s heavyweight chipmakers and industry analysts in what Proofpoint analysts call an ongoing espionage blitz. Their endgame? Probably stealing semiconductor secrets as China hustles to beef up domestic chip self-sufficiency, especially with all those US export controls in the mix.

Speaking of export controls: buckle up for policy whiplash. Just months ago, the Trump team had the US and China in a tariff dogfight — think 145% slams on almost everything. China hit back with crazy counter-tariffs, then both sides cooled it after intense Geneva and London negotiations, and miracles of miracles: real de-escalation. China’s Ministry of Commerce soft-pedaled their rhetoric, and Trump’s crew eased up on some of the most precious tech exports — notably letting NVIDIA resume shipping those long-coveted H20 AI chips to China. Even EDA software got a green light, meaning Chinese chip designers like SMIC have finally scrounged some essential tools back. Why? Rumor has it Trump is eyeing a “grand tech bargain,” using chips as leverage for things like rare earth mineral access and fentanyl cooperation.

But don’t mistake this for a full lovefest. Trump and US hawks still want home-field advantage on global AI infrastructure. Meanwhile, China’s regulators are doubling down on AI content labeling and rolling out digital IDs that put them squarely in the driver’s seat for data oversight — a move that’s both about party control and spooking foreign investors. Any switchback in trade or policy could send ripples through both countries’ tech sectors, wi

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This is your Beijing Bytes: US-China Tech War Updates podcast.

Listeners, Ting here, your fastest channel for US-China tech drama and cyber jaw-droppers. Let’s zip past intros—because, wow, these last two weeks packed enough plot twists to outpace a binge-worthy series.

First up, the hacking headlines. The Chinese state-backed group Salt Typhoon made a spectacular breach: a US Army National Guard unit’s network was infiltrated, with attackers grabbing communications, admin credentials, and—brace yourself—network blueprints connecting every other state and several US territories. The Department of Defense worries this could cripple state cybersecurity teams if there’s a full-blown cyber conflict. And this isn’t Salt Typhoon’s first rodeo—earlier, they hit US telecom giants and snagged sensitive records in both the US and Canada, by exploiting weak spots in Cisco and Palo Alto gear. The chilling part? They also got their hands on the work locations and PII of cyber defenders. Imagine a chess game, but the opponent just stole your playbook.

And now, for the other flavor of security anxiety: The Pentagon’s longstanding outsourcing of IT cloud support to Microsoft engineers—located in mainland China. Yes, you heard correctly: engineers based in China with access to the Defense Department’s “High Impact Level” data, including military operations. Supposedly chaperoned by underqualified “digital escorts,” this arrangement might've let vulnerabilities slip through under the guise of boring old software updates. It’s a reminder that hacking isn’t always a hoodie-in-basement affair; sometimes, it’s a spreadsheet problem.

But cyberwars are just one front. In the semiconductor saga, June brought a game-changing U.S.-China framework deal. Both sides started backpedaling from their all-or-nothing export bans. For instance, US EDA software giants Synopsys and Cadence resumed sales to Chinese customers, easing Beijing’s chip design woes. Meanwhile, China restarted rare earth shipments, minus the really military stuff. This thaw is about mutual pain—America’s “Big Beautiful Bill” just ramped up domestic chip tax credits, but even with billions pumped in, the global supply chain is still a jigsaw only solved together.

Meanwhile, Nvidia’s H20 AI chip saga reads like a business school drama. After months of lobbying and an April export block, Washington’s finally letting Nvidia resume shipments to China. Jensen Huang even appeared on CCTV to confirm it. For Nvidia, that means billions of lost dollars may swing back on the ledger. For China, it’s a stay of execution, but the larger lesson is flashing neon: these wins are temporary, and the clock ticks on a self-reliance race neither side can win alone.

Here’s the future forecast, straight from the experts: the new trade détente is fragile, not final. Some security hawks claim the truce is just stalling for time while both build up domestic supply chains and cyber arsenals. Analysts predict we may see a Xi-Trump

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This is your Beijing Bytes: US-China Tech War Updates podcast.

Ting here, sliding into your feeds fresh off the streets of Beijing and the digital trenches of the US-China tech war—because let’s face it, folks, things are wild and we’re all mainlining algorithms these days. Buckle up for some recent mega-moves, because over the past fortnight, Team America and Team Dragon have been playing 4D chess with our collective future.

First up, cybersecurity is not just a word you ignore when you click “I agree” on a pop-up. According to Astro Awani, while the US and China are obsessed with slapping tariffs on each other, the real battleground is cyberspace. Remember those days when Barack and Xi tried to play nice and set cyber rules? Yeah, ancient history. Now, the only thing hotter than a Beijing summer is the exchange of digital volleys. American officials swear Chinese hackers are after defense contractors and critical infrastructure, while Beijing claims they’re just fending off Uncle Sam’s digital freedom fighters. Even the ASEAN Regional Forum in Kuala Lumpur last week couldn’t get these two to stop finger-pointing or agree on a game plan.

On the policy front, it’s been all about the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Signed by President Trump on the 4th, this beast puts the squeeze on any foreign entity, especially Chinese, trying to play in US AI or clean energy sandboxes. If you want a slice of that sweet federal R&D pie, you better prove your supply chain isn’t even breathing Chinese air. That means tighter controls on tech licensing, robust due diligence, and a whole lot of headaches for multinationals. And let’s not forget, those chip export controls? They’re tighter than a submarine gasket. The US is even eyeing Malaysia and Thailand as possible new choke points, with Malaysia now requiring permits a month ahead for high-end US AI chip exports—so no sneaky rerouting to China.

Meanwhile, over in Zhongguancun, the Silicon Valley of Beijing, Huawei’s out here flexing like they’re running the show. They’re pitching their Ascend 910B AI chips to the Middle East and Southeast Asia, targeting places where US export bans have left a tech vacuum. No major deals yet, but they’re dangling remote access to their CloudMatrix 384 AI cloud for customers who can’t get US hardware. Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang says China’s military wouldn’t touch US chips anyway—too risky with all the export uncertainty. He claims China’s homegrown computing power is already huge, and US controls are just pushing them to double down on domestic R&D.

Speaking of industry impacts, the tariffs from both sides are still sky-high compared to pre-2018 levels. The US average tariff on Chinese goods is about 51%, while China’s is around 32%. Every trade dollar is being taxed, sometimes multiple times. That’s more red tape than a Beijing bureau.

Expert analysis? Well, if you ask Ting, this is all setting the stage for a world where tech is Balkanized—AI, chips, cybersecurity, you name i

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Hey listeners, Ting here, your boots-on-the-ground cyber sage with the latest Beijing Bytes—US-China Tech War Updates, and wow, these past two weeks have been a codebreaker’s fever dream. Let’s jack straight into the big moves, glitches, and expert buzz shaping the global tech war as of July 13th, 2025.

Let’s start with the electric pulse of **cybersecurity**. Just days ago, Italian cops in Milan nabbed Zewei Xu, a 33-year-old Chinese national wanted by the FBI and linked to China’s Silk Typhoon (aka Hafnium) hacking crew. Xu’s group allegedly infiltrated everything from Western COVID vaccine research at UT Austin to government email swarms, swiping sensitive US policy and IP. With international law finally syncing up, the FBI even slapped a $10 million bounty on another rogue Chinese hacker unit. The message? Global dragnet mode is on for state-aligned hackers—and cyber-espionage is no longer a ghost in the shell, but a headline[TechRadar, TS2].

On to **tech restrictions**—the perennial tug of war. The US is still flexing its muscles, especially in semiconductors and AI. Remember those juicy NVIDIA H100/H200 chips and AMD’s MI300X? Still banned for China. But—plot twist—last month a fragile truce let Chinese firms access Electronic Design Automation (EDA) software again. Now Cadence and Synopsys can ship high-end chip design tools eastward. India’s Ruchir Dixit points out this blurs the line between hardware supply chains and code, and could turbocharge Chinese chip design just as the US tried to slow it[ET, AInvest]. Of course, while the US lifts one fence, it’s raising tariffs, threatening a 25% chip levy come July 9, with some $15 billion of extra pain for companies like NVIDIA, who are meanwhile doubling down on Arizona with TSMC to localize production and dodge the crossfire.

What’s China’s counter? **Rare earths and local chip hustle.** China’s tightening its grip on gallium and germanium exports, vital for Western chips, while Huawei and Xiaomi have stunned Washington by pumping out advanced chips like the 7nm Kirin 9000S—designed, built, and boxed entirely in China. Experts say that if the tempo keeps up, China could soon ditch foreign tech altogether, turning sanctions into reverse rocket fuel for its semiconductor ascent. That’s a plot twist US policymakers definitely didn’t order[Daily Galaxy].

**Policy shifts** on both sides are wild. Beijing’s doubling down on “future industries”—think humanoid robots, brain-computer links, and 6G gear—staking its next five-year plan on leapfrog tech. Meanwhile, US companies like Lam Research and Applied Materials are riding the CHIPS Act wave, locking billions to build American fabs and fortify supply chains that really don’t want another COVID-style nightmare.

What does it all mean for the industry? It’s an arms race for brains and bytes. Chinese AI startups like DeepSeek are closing the gap, but NVIDIA’s ecosystem still rules in

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This is your Beijing Bytes: US-China Tech War Updates podcast.

I'm Ting, your byte-sized guide to the US-China tech war—where every headline feels like a new turn in a cyberpunk thriller. Let’s plug into what’s really happened these past couple weeks, right up to today.

This fortnight’s buzzword? Escalation. First up: cybersecurity. The Senate is grilling the Pentagon for a stronger game plan against Chinese cyber incursions. China’s pushed past spying for secrets; now their hackers—think Volt Typhoon and the newly surfaced Salt Typhoon—are camping out in US critical infrastructure, especially around military outposts like Guam. Officials are freaked: it’s less about stealing intellectual property, and more about the ability to trigger disruptions, even as a military prelude if things heat up over Taiwan. The Biden-to-Trump transition—yes, Trump’s back—has officials promising to hit Chinese cyber actors harder, but deterrence is tricky. Adversaries just don’t fear US digital reprisals yet.

Industry and policy are morphing just as fast. In April, the Trump administration’s rules kneecapped US chipmakers, effectively closing off $50 billion in Chinese sales. Nvidia, led by Jensen Huang, lost $8 billion in potential sales and saw their China market share halved overnight. But here’s the twist: Nvidia’s global AI dominance made its stock skyrocket anyway. The White House tried using Nvidia’s success to prove its policies work. Huang countered that the restrictions just made China more self-reliant—and voilà, Huawei and other domestic players are closing the gap.

Cue the policy shuffle. Nvidia’s persistence and a bit of tech-world saber-rattling led to a reversal—stricter rules on the H20 processor were delayed. Meanwhile, Nvidia is set to release the Blackwell RTX Pro 6000 chip for China by September. It’s an AI chip—made export-compliant by stripping out high-bandwidth memory and NVLink. This lets Nvidia claw back some lost Chinese business while staying mainly on the right side of US law. The move reflects a bigger trend: US export policy now allows certain mid-tier AI chips to reach China, dialing down from maximum pressure but adding a layer of compliance hassle for everyone.

Diplomacy is in play too. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and China’s Wang Yi are prepping a possible Xi-Trump summit, aiming to extend the 90-day truce that paused some tariffs and briefly eased export restrictions. Investors are betting big on this: if the summit goes well, stocks in AI, semiconductors, and—yes—5G could boom. The trade truces are fragile, but tech firms like TSMC and ASML see an opportunity to break out of regulatory limbo.

Even agriculture is in the crossfire. The USDA just rolled out a security plan to curb Chinese purchases of US farmland and defend farm technologies from cyber threats. Why? Farms now run on connected devices—GPS tractors, IoT irrigation—and a single hack could ripple through the whole food supply chain.

Experts say both sides are

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Alright listeners, Ting here, your one-stop byte for all the delicious drama—digital and otherwise—in the US-China tech war. Let’s plug in, because these last two weeks have been anything but dull on the Beijing Bytes cyber airwaves.

First up, Taiwan dropped a semiconductor bombshell. On June 10, Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs slapped Huawei and SMIC with new export controls. Now, any Taiwanese chip gear or know-how sent their way needs government approval. This turbo-charged Washington’s earlier sanctions, sealing a loophole and slamming the brakes on China’s ability to leapfrog into advanced chipmaking. Huawei just had to delay mass production of its shiny new 910C AI chip, and SMIC’s dreams of catching up took a hit too. According to Isaac Lane at AInvest, this is forcing China to double down on its homegrown chip drive—Beijing’s “China Chip 2.0” has a $1.4 trillion warchest to make sure China isn’t left behind in the silicon dust.

But hold up—while the US and Taiwan are putting up walls, Chinese tech is taking the lemons and hacking lemonade. Edwin Foster at AInvest notes that US tariffs and controls have been, ironically, a growth hormone for Chinese resilience. US semiconductor output is down 12% while China’s tech sector ballooned 25%. As American fabs run into labor bottlenecks (Arizona, I’m looking at you) and inflation eats away at competitiveness, Chinese companies are thriving, innovating under pressure, and making investors look east for the next big thing.

Meanwhile, the cyber frontlines are heating up. Italian police nabbed Xu Zewei—a notorious hacker tied to Silk Typhoon, or Hafnium—at Milan’s airport. US prosecutors say Xu, with a buddy named Zhang Yu, hacked into the Texas research university’s COVID-19 data, then helped pillage Microsoft Exchange Servers and poke around for US government secrets. While Xu awaits extradition, Washington is touting its crackdown on threat actors and rallying partners like Italy to turn up the heat, according to reports from Security Boulevard and SC Media.

If that’s not enough digital cloak and dagger for you, Canadian media titan Rogers just confirmed it was targeted by the Chinese group Salt Typhoon. This outfit, previously flagged for sneaking into US and UK telecoms, aims for nothing less than global communications supremacy. Think intercepted calls, emails, and a front-row seat to government gossip.

On the policy side, Washington’s new budget bill really puts the “you shall not pass” into clean tech credits for companies with Chinese ties. The Prohibited Foreign Entity Restrictions are squeezing China out of competing for US green energy tax perks. As if that weren’t complicated enough, Trump 2.0’s tariff tracker is revving up with new Section 232 probes, higher tariffs on everything from chips to cranes, and a persistent squeeze on Chinese tech imports. All the while, US supply chain “friendshoring” is hitting turbu

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