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

Today’s Beijing Bytes is coming at you straight from the eye of the US-China tech-hacking hurricane—I’m Ting, here to decode the code wars so you don’t have to break out your packet sniffer. Let’s plug in.

The past two weeks have been all-out cyber-chaos. Last Friday, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun went on record accusing the US National Security Agency of launching targeted cyberattacks on China’s critical infrastructure. Beijing’s cyber watchdogs claim these attacks go beyond mere snooping—they say the US is “presetting vulnerabilities for future large-scale sabotage activities.” If true, that’s a massive escalation in cyber brinkmanship, with China threatening “all measures necessary to defend sovereignty in cyberspace.”

Not to be outdone, security firm Trellix just dropped their October 2025 CyberThreat Report—and the data isn’t pretty. There was a huge spike in China-affiliated threat activity back in April during military muscle-flexing near Taiwan, but now the trend’s leveled out with both sides probing, poking, and occasionally launching digital airhorns just to keep each other twitchy. Microsoft is flagging three Chinese-linked groups as responsible for exploiting critical SharePoint vulnerabilities—like ToolShell, aka CVE-2025-53770—though Russia’s suspected in at least one nasty breach of Kansas City National Security Campus. To put it simply, when even the experts can’t keep track of all the hacking back and forth, how are the rest of us supposed to know if we’ve been pwned?

Meanwhile, on the policy front, both sides are swinging for the fences. The US Commerce Department has unleashed a new rule that blocks not just blacklisted Chinese companies, but any of their affiliates—think 50% ownership or more—from getting US tech. Under Secretary Jeffrey Kessler calls it “closing the loopholes.” China’s response? A resounding “this is extremely bad,” with threats of retaliatory permitting requirements for rare earth exports. These rare earths are crucial for everything from smartphones to MRI machines, and China’s new controls could throttle global supply chains in tech, chips, and aerospace.

Tariffs have mutated, too. President Trump doubled down, hinting at tariffs on Chinese goods hitting a meat-grinding 155% next week if no deal is struck with Xi Jinping at the Asia-Pacific summit in South Korea. Trump says he’ll negotiate “a very fair deal.” Investors, meanwhile, seem to live for the drama—markets have been seesawing as the rumors of a new US-China deal swirl, and semiconductor stocks in China are rallying as Beijing trumpets “tech self-reliance.”

Speaking of self-reliance—China’s Communist Party just emerged from a week-long closed-door plenum, releasing a five-year plan that doubles down on ambition: quantum tech, nuclear fusion, brain-computer interfaces, and biotech are all on Beijing’s menu. Officials promise massive support and fresh policies to develop advanced chips, AI, and green tech. Analyst Gerard DiPippo at RAND calls it “more of the same,” but it’s the same strategy that’s already made China a global force in electric vehicles, batteries, and, yes, rare-earth exports.

Experts caution that this high-stakes game could actually be a multi-front, multi-decade struggle. Both Sean Cairncross, US National Cyber Director, and Chinese policymakers agree on one thing—the other side needs to back off in cyberspace. But nobody’s blinking.

So, what’s next? Barring some miraculous handshake at the APEC summit, expect more tariffs, more tech restrictions, and a lot more cyber chess. The name of the game is resilience and escalation: each side pushing harder to out-innovate and outlast.

That’s all for this week’s Beijing Bytes. Thanks for tuning in, and don’t forget to subscribe for your next download of the world’s most electrified...