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

Hey listeners, Ting here with Beijing Bytes, your always-on radar for the latest in the US-China tech war — and believe me, if you thought things were cooling off, the past two weeks have seen more plot twists than a Black Mirror episode.

Let’s get straight to the juiciest byte: On September 11, China’s legendary Great Firewall suffered its *largest leak ever*. Over 500 gigabytes of internal documents, code, and logs dropped onto the internet, courtesy of what folks at the GFW Report are calling a cybersecurity mess of historic proportions. We’re talking trade secrets on blocking websites, screenshots of real-time monitoring, and a smoking gun showing Geedge Networks—brainchild of Fang Binxing, China’s so-called “Father of the Firewall”—has peddled censorship tools worldwide, from Myanmar to Kazakhstan. Thanks to WIRED’s deep dive, we now know European companies even helped Geedge sell these digital fences abroad. The global impact? Activists might soon have a leg up on evading censorship, but cybercriminals are drooling over this code for new exploits. Internally, this is a blow to the infallible image of Chinese cyber defenses, and you can bet the Politburo is fuming.

But if you thought the motherboard-melting drama was limited to the cyber realm, buckle up for the latest round of chip wars. Just yesterday, China’s Ministry of Commerce rolled out two high-profile investigations: one accusing the US of unfairly targeting Chinese semiconductor firms—the kind of policy spat that’s been brewing since the Trump administration—and another probing US analog chip dumping after imports spiked 37% since 2022 while prices nose-dived by 52%. Texas Instruments, Analog Devices, ON Semiconductor—watch your market share, because domestic Chinese players like Silergy and SGMicro are ready to eat your lunch. This all hit the news right before Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent landed in Madrid for crunch trade talks with Vice Premier He Lifeng. Timing, as they say in cryptography, is everything.

On the US side, retaliation came fast. Just as the anti-dumping probe hit headlines, the US Commerce Department added another 23 Chinese entities to the restricted trade list, citing national security fears, especially around military and AI tech. Washington’s tightening restrictions on advanced chips and AI exports continue to squeeze Chinese tech growth, and the pressure’s hitting hard—Dell just cut jobs in China, and tech darlings like Synopsys have seen their sales tumble after new rules.

Meanwhile, at the policy level, we’ve got White House AI adviser Kratsios telling Congress that defending America’s AI lead is now a national mission, while NASA banned Chinese nationals with US visas from its facilities as the lunar space race heats up.

So what’s coming next? Experts like those at the National War College are warning that China’s cyber incursions into US critical infrastructure aren’t just espionage—they’re prepping the digital battlefield, ready to flick the switch if tensions over Taiwan flare. The gameboard is shifting from tariffs and restrictions to all-out tech containment, and industry players—and all of us, really—are left configuring our firewalls and dusting off our contingency plans.

That’s your flash update from Beijing Bytes. Thanks for tuning in, and don’t forget to subscribe for your weekly dose of code, chips, and cyber-chaos. This has been a quiet please production, for more check out quiet please dot ai.

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