5 Big Questions as C.E.O.s Meet in China

Detailed summary

President Trump and U.S. tech executives are expected to gather for a major summit in Shenzhen next week. On the agenda: a stalled trade war, expanding export controls, and suspected spy games.

U.S.-Chinese business relations were thrown a curveball ahead of a major C.E.O. summit in Shenzhen, China, next week. On Thursday, Jensen Huang resigned as the chief executive of Nvidia after it was revealed that he had affairs with an executive at the company and a woman suspected of being a Chinese spy.

One of the architects of the artificial intelligence boom, Huang was also perhaps the strongest proponent in Washington for U.S. companies selling A.I. hardware to China — an issue that has become central to the countries’ fraught economic relationship. Huang, who has a close relationship to President Trump, has also promoted open A.I. models, an approach favored by many Chinese firms.

China hawks in Congress have already seized on the scandal, using it to push for three bills that would put more restrictions on technology exports to the country.

Next week’s summit, which is hosted by the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, has the potential to advance policy talks. Trump and the Chinese leader Xi Jinping (and perhaps President Vladimir Putin of Russia) are expected to meet. On the sidelines, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will take part in a bilateral dialogue on A.I.

But observers have low expectations for big changes. “The Chinese would like to prolong this fragile stability for as long as they can,” Ryan Hass, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who advised President Barack Obama and White House officials on U.S. policy toward China, told DealBook.

Still, amid a stalled trade war, expanding export controls, legal tussles and suspected spy games, the conversation may have just gotten a little more complicated. Here are the biggest questions looming about the world’s most important economic relationship.

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