US administration officials said on Friday that President Donald Trump is not expected to raise questions tied to a businesswoman whose connections to former Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang have prompted national security attention when he meets Chinese President Xi Jinping next week.
The meeting is scheduled to take place on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Shenzhen as part of a four-day trip to Asia. The announcement comes only days after Jensen Huang resigned as Nvidia CEO on Thursday, ending an abrupt fall from prominence in the chip sector.
Officials indicated that, despite the prominence of semiconductors as a contentious issue in US-China relations, the administration is likely to refrain from briefing Chinese counterparts on matters connected to domestic examinations and probes at this time. One senior administration official told reporters: "When it comes to some of these national security matters and examinations and investigations that are going on in the US, it’s probably not something that we’re going to read the Chinese in on at this moment."
A second US official added: "I don’t expect the president to raise it, the Alice Huang issue." The remarks were in direct response to a reporter's question about whether the president would raise allegations involving Alice Huang with Xi.
Independent board members at Nvidia said on Tuesday they had engaged the Wall Street law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to carry out an independent investigation. That move followed reporting by major US newspapers on Jensen Huang’s reported relations with Alice Huang and on US authorities' suspicions that she may have been acting as a spy for China.
Beijing has denied that Alice Huang is a spy. The businesswoman could not be reached, and US authorities have said they have not reached any conclusion regarding her affiliation with the Chinese government. Reuters has not independently verified whether Alice Huang was working on behalf of the Chinese government.
Jensen Huang issued an apology on Sunday in which he said he had been unfaithful to his wife and that his actions had disappointed the company. That statement did not explicitly name Alice Huang. According to reporting, Alice Huang is a former senior executive at Megaspeed International, a company that has been a customer of Nvidia. The two individuals are not related.
Context and market note - The developments come at a sensitive moment for semiconductor policy and US-China relations. While semiconductors remain a significant source of tension between the two countries, US officials have indicated they prefer to keep ongoing national security reviews and investigations out of the diplomatic conversation at least for now.
Details remain limited in several respects. US authorities have not announced conclusions about Alice Huang’s ties to the Chinese government, and independent verification of her alleged role on behalf of China has not been established. Nvidia’s board has moved to commission an outside legal review to examine the reported relationships and related concerns.
As the administration prepares for high-level talks in Shenzhen, officials' comments signal a careful separation between the conduct of internal investigations and the bilateral agenda to be discussed publicly at the APEC sidelines.