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

Listeners, Ting here with another crunchy byte from the virtual trenches: the US-China tech war is firing on all digital cylinders, and this past fortnight has been anything but boring. Let’s debug what’s happened, why you should care, whose servers got toasted, and whether your favorite AI is about to swap citizenship.

First up in the cyber drama, Cisco Talos just blew the whistle on a group they call UAT-8099—yeah, it sounds like a Star Wars droid, but this one’s far more dangerous. Chinese-speaking hackers went all-in on Internet Information Services (IIS) servers across India, Thailand, Vietnam, Canada, and Brazil, hijacking legit organizations from universities to telecoms. The goal? Classic SEO fraud, shuffling users to sketchy ads and illegal gambling dens via server redirects, and raking in data. The tools? Vintage web shells, Cobalt Strike, a beefy VPN arsenal—think SoftEther and EasyTier—and fresh flavors of BadIIS malware flagged just days ago. They’re slick, buddies, with new samples sliding past antivirus like a ninja at DEF CON. The kicker: they love RDP and establish persistence that would make any red teamer blush. According to Cisco’s own words, they’re cemented in and happy to run the show until patched out.

Switching from shell injections to policy salvos, let’s talk export controls. The US Bureau of Industry and Security, not to be outdone, just rolled out what compliance pros now call the Affiliates Rule. Now, if a company is fifty percent or more owned by a Chinese Entity List or Military-End-User suspect, it counts as listed too. That’s a big line in the sand. Companies have till late November to get their act together, but if you’re a purely Chinese-owned shop—even without a Western JV partner—congrats, your embargo starts today. Expect serious headaches up and down global supply chains as every chief compliance officer mutters in Mandarin and English, dusting off denial lists.

Meanwhile, on the high-altitude diplomacy front, China just lobbed a trillion-dollar investment proposal at Washington if the US softens those tough national-security trade rules. According to QuiverQuant, this is all linked to the recent TikTok licensing deal where the algorithm—China’s crown jewel—stays home while US investors mind the shop. The mood in Beijing? Pragmatic, not desperate. President Xi told Trump directly: “Let our companies in, and we’ll build factories, invest, maybe even boost Apple’s new India and Vietnam strategies!” At the same time, Trump’s been touting a $17 trillion total in new investment “promises,” with analysts on Semafor and Bloomberg noting that, in some sectors—think EVs and batteries—China is not just neck-and-neck but, as Ford’s Jim Farley put it, “completely dominating.”

As for AI and chips, Nvidia’s Jensen Huang says China lags just “nanoseconds” behind the US, a jarring reversal from earlier boasts that China was still stuck in neutral. But Chinese tech champions like Huawei and DeepSeek are racing to build their own silicon, snubbing American chips and, in the process, turbocharging national AI projects and shaking off dependencies.

Pulling back for the thirty-thousand-foot view: Washington and Beijing are fighting for the digital steering wheel, but the game leans pragmatic. Licensing, investment diplomacy, and realpolitik beat ideology every time, as experts from Columbia’s Andrew Kennedy to troupes of American VCs have observed. The competitive edge increasingly lies not in defending old ground but inventing new platforms, and—surprise, surprise—consumers and hackers alike hold the ultimate sway.

Looking ahead, expect the rules of engagement to keep mutating, way more ransomware headlines with international flavor, and the global supply chain map to look like a Jackson Pollock painting. Both countries crave tech independence, but they’re so...