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 summit by year’s end—if that happens, we could lock in some of these tech trade relaxations for a while, at least until the next round of cyber fireworks.

Listeners, if you blinked, you missed a revolution on both sides of the Pacific. The US and China are playing a high-stakes game of whack-a-mole: every restriction, every hack, every “compromise” resets the scoreboard but doesn’t end the game. Will the next two weeks bring more cyber shockers, trade thaw, or a fresh round of sanctions? You know I'll break it down.

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