Silicon Smackdown: Xi and Trump Call Truce, but Cyber Chaos Reigns Supreme!

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

If you’ve been tracking US-China tech drama, buckle up—Ting’s got your instant replay and expert analysis. This fortnight, the biggest headline? Beijing and Washington just called a cautious timeout. At the post-Busan summit, Xi Jinping and Donald Trump agreed on a one-year truce, which kicked off with China suspending its gnarly bans on gallium, germanium, and antimony exports to the US. These aren’t just your everyday metals—think the special sauce for chips, fiber optics, and solar panels. With China holding over 90% of global supply for gallium, exporters from Europe down to Southeast Asia have been in panic mode since Beijing imposed the ban last December in retaliation for Washington’s crackdown on advanced chipmaking kit. Suddenly, with the new deal, firms on both sides are breathing a little easier.

Don’t forget, this thaw goes both ways—Trump agreed to slash those punitive tariffs on key Chinese imports and ease up on the fentanyl-related measures. Farmers in the Midwest might just pop some baijiu in thanks. But no one’s kissing and making up. Analysts at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies warn this is just a tactical pause, not a strategic breakthrough. The rivalry—especially over semiconductors and AI—continues to simmer, and Wall Street’s already betting on new flashpoints by next year.

Meanwhile, the cyber battlefront is an absolute warzone. You might’ve caught that the Congressional Budget Office—the US government’s number crunchers—reported a serious breach likely traced to Chinese state-backed hackers. They may have scooped up sensitive communications between lawmakers during the longest US government shutdown on record, while most cyber defenders were furloughed. As if that weren’t enough, Salt Typhoon—a Chinese team active since 2019—was officially labeled a national security crisis by the FBI and CISA. According to recent advisories, Salt Typhoon’s latest exploits may have hit 200 companies across 80 countries, hammering telecom giants like AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon, even sneaking around critical infrastructure for old-school espionage and disruption.

There’s fresh proof that Chinese groups have been exploiting newly discovered “zero-day” vulnerabilities, like the Lanscope flaw, to plant themselves in US policy think tanks and non-profits—part of a wider playbook to shape or at least pilfer sensitive debate around US-China tech policy. Security Affairs highlighted how new backdoors like “SesameOp” now stealthily control compromised systems using generative AI tools, making detection much trickier.

Cyber experts are calling 2025 the year compliance finally gave way to real resilience. Gartner analysts say US and Chinese companies are shifting from just checking security boxes to full-on defense transformations. Everyone’s suddenly obsessed with finding the right mix of “process-aware monitoring” and behavioral analytics to spot threats that hide in plain sight. Because, to quote one OT security engineer, technology’s not “secure” unless you can tell whether that system glitch is just Monday blues or a Red Dragon hack.

Looking ahead? The truce has paused the most visible hostilities, but entrenched interests on both sides remain. Export controls, cyberattacks, and tech regulations are still the go-to weapons if talks sour. The AI arms race and semiconductor self-reliance efforts are set for another round. And with both sides showcasing their cyber muscle, the risk of miscalculation keeps rising.

That’s it for Beijing Bytes—thanks for tuning in! Smash that subscribe button, and as always, stay curious. This has been a quiet please production, for more check out quiet please dot ai.

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