This is your US-China CyberPulse: Defense Updates podcast.

Hey listeners, Ting here! The cyber-beat’s been wild this week, so slide up close—let’s crack open the latest US–China CyberPulse: Defense Updates. Spoiler: it’s been a high-stakes chess match of code, laws, and political muscle, sprinkled with just enough drama to keep even your grandma’s firewall on edge.

Let’s start with a headline act: Xu Zewei, a 33-year-old Chinese national, found himself snapped up by Italian police on July 3 at Uncle Sam’s request. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because Xu is allegedly a key player in the Hafnium campaign—the same operation that hammered Microsoft Exchange servers in 2020 and 2021. He’s charged with stealing critical COVID-19 research from American universities, all working under the shadow of China’s Ministry of State Security. The US Department of Justice wants him extradited for a nine-count indictment, while his buddy Zhang Yu has gone full ghost mode, still at large. Xu claims mistaken identity and lost phones, but the Feds, with help from Italy, are treating this as a symbolic takedown and a flex for international law enforcement teamwork. Experts, though, say Hafnium is hydra-headed—chop off one and more pop up, so the battle continues.

Zooming out, Washington’s rolling out what can only be described as a cybersecurity grand strategy buffet. The key ingredients? Economic decoupling, high-tech export controls, and a real focus on military posturing in the Indo-Pacific region. The goal is simple: fence off China from advanced tech—think semiconductors, AI, quantum—and avoid letting Chinese firms (cough, Huawei and TikTok) munch on American data snacks. This new approach isn’t just about playing defense. The US is using high-level alliances and multilateral agreements, especially with “friendshoring” partners, to build layered resilience into supply chains. If chips from Taiwan or servers from Korea keep American secrets safer, that’s where the money’s flowing.

Private sector? Oh, they’re in full paranoia mode, but for solid reasons. Right now, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies is urging the FCC to yank existing equipment authorizations for Chinese companies like Huawei, ZTE, and Hikvision. Why? There are thousands of legacy devices in US networks, all with potential backdoors, and unless those get unplugged, adversaries have a standing invitation into the network party. The proposed fix is a total transparency overhaul: trace every component, not just finished products, and demand aggressive disclosure of foreign partnerships. If you’re a manufacturer or importer, get ready to lay your supply chain cards face-up.

But plot twist—the backbone for sharing threat info between the private sector and government is under threat itself. The Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015, which gives companies legal cover to swap intel on active threats and defenses, is set to expire in three months. If Congress doesn’t re-up soon, companies might clam up, and that’s a recipe for disaster. Tech leaders and the US Chamber of Commerce are basically shouting from the rooftops: let this lapse, and you might as well hang a “hack me” sign on America’s data.

Meanwhile, China’s not just sitting back—President Xi Jinping’s Global Security Initiative is out there selling Beijing’s vision as a multilateral security leader and technology standard bearer, especially across Asia and the Global South. The US and China are jousting not only over networks but over who sets the rules and writes the future.

Thanks for tuning in, cyber sleuths. Don’t forget to subscribe—this has been a Quiet Please production. For more, check out quietplease dot ai.

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