President Donald Trump is not expected to raise Nvidia-linked espionage allegations with Chinese President Xi Jinping during his upcoming China trip, US officials told the Financial Times and CNBC. Officials are drawing a firm line: trade talks are one thing; US export controls, they say, aren’t up for negotiation. SourceSource
“I don’t expect the president to raise the Alice Huang issue,” one US official told the FT. CNBC reported that an official on a Friday press call described implementing a trade agreement as the economic focus of the Xi meeting. SourceSource
Trump is scheduled to meet Xi in Shenzhen, according to the FT. CNBC reports that the city will host the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit on November 18–19, and that the White House also plans a separate three-way meeting involving Trump, Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin. SourceSource
The chip-policy stakes
Both outlets report that Nvidia founder Jensen Huang resigned as CEO earlier in the week after reports of an affair with Alice Huang, an executive at Nvidia customer Megaspeed who is suspected of being a Chinese spy. China has called the allegations against her baseless, according to CNBC. SourceSource
CNBC reported concerns that Megaspeed may have helped divert restricted Nvidia chips to China. Nvidia’s chips are used to train advanced AI models, including those developed by OpenAI and Anthropic, the FT notes. SourceSource
“In all of our discussions and negotiations with the Chinese, we do not negotiate American export controls,” an official told the FT. The official described those controls as national-security matters developed within the administration and said they were not expected to feature in conversations during the trip. Source
The FT said it had previously reported that the Commerce Department, led by Howard Lutnick, delayed efforts to put Megaspeed on a US national-security blacklist. Listing would require exporters to obtain licences to ship chips to the company. Source
Treasury wasn’t on the fence: Secretary Scott Bessent said Friday that his department had favoured adding Megaspeed to the list “for months.” Source
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