Tea Time with Tyrants: How Xi and Putin Are Building a Silicon Iron Curtain While DC Panics Over AI Leaks

About this episode

The episode discusses the ongoing US-China tech rivalry and the implications of Xi Jinping's meeting with Vladimir Putin on international tech relations.

This is your Beijing Bytes: US-China Tech War Updates podcast. I’m Alexandra Reeves, and this is Beijing Bytes, your quick dive into the US‑China tech war. Let’s start in Beijing, where the Trump–Xi summit has just wrapped. Analysts at CSIS and Johns Hopkins say the meeting technically “stabilized” relations, but the tech rivalry is still running hot. There was no breakthrough on export controls or AI, just a fragile pause while both sides keep re‑arming in cyberspace and semiconductors. At almost the same moment, Xi Jinping sat down with Vladimir Putin in Beijing for what Chinese state media called “tea diplomacy.” The Kremlin is pushing a joint declaration on a multipolar world and a “new type of international relations.” Buried in that diplomatic language is a clear tech message: Russia and China want to build alternative stacks in chips, cloud, and AI infrastructure to route around US pressure. Forty‑plus documents are on the table, and Russian officials are openly talking about co‑developing next‑gen networks and expanding cross‑border data links. Back in Washington, US lawmakers are zeroing in on AI exports. South China Morning Post reports that House Foreign Affairs chair…

People in this episode

Host: Alexandra Reeves

Topics covered

• US-China tech war
• AI exports
• diplomacy
• cybersecurity
• semiconductors
• international relations

Keywords

• US-China relations
• AI
• export controls
• cybersecurity
• semiconductors
• diplomacy
• tech rivalry

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: CSIS, Johns Hopkins, South China Morning Post, Nvidia, Intel, House Foreign Affairs

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