Nvidia fallout puts trade truce to test as Xi welcomes Trump

Résumé détaillé

The scandal is only deepening.

Xi Jinping’s third summit of the year with Donald Trump is going off script before their meetings even get underway, as the spy allegations engulfing Nvidia’s Jensen Huang reopen old rifts.

For years, Huang had been most the prominent US tech executive advocating for greater engagement with China as he lobbied for looser export controls on semiconductors. Now, bombshell accusations he conducted an affair with an alleged Chinese spy are giving lawmakers in Washington ammunition to tighten curbs, days before a major leaders’ summit in the Chinese technology hub of Shenzhen.

At stake is a yearlong trade truce between the world’s top economies expiring in January — its renewal hinges, in large part, on the US pausing new restrictions on tech shipments to China. David Perdue, America’s top diplomat in Beijing, on Wednesday signalled the furore was posing a test to bilateral relations during an already “bumpy” stretch.

The scandal is only deepening. Fresh reports that Huang had multiple extramarital affairs have cast further doubt over his future, with Nvidia’s board now working to identify a potential replacement chief executive officer, according to a person familiar with the matter.

For some in Beijing, the timing of the revelations has drawn attention. Reports of Huang’s affair only exploded into full view in the aftermath of the Republicans’ midterms wipe out that weakened Trump — a longtime backer of Nvidia’s CEO, who is one of the world’s most powerful figures in US artificial intelligence. Hu Xijin, former editor-in-chief of the Global Times, claimed leaks by US intelligence services were “driven by calculated political motives.”

“China is suffering collateral damage from internal strife in the US,” said Wang Yiwei, a former Chinese diplomat and director of Renmin University’s Institute of International Affairs.

So far, there’s no sign the Nvidia saga will derail the truce. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent — who manages the US economic relationship with China —…

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