This is your Silicon Siege: China’s Tech Offensive podcast.

Hey listeners, Ting here, cyber-sleuth and your favorite translator of all things China and hacking. The last two weeks have been a Silicon Siege—China’s cyber offensive in top gear, with U.S. tech firms right at ground zero.

Let’s kick it off with Salt Typhoon, which experts now call the most ambitious Chinese data-grab yet. This wasn’t just a classic hack; it was a yearslong operation where Salt Typhoon infiltrated major telecom and tech companies across 80 countries, probably stealing personal or business data on nearly every American. Stan Stahl, the cybersecurity expert, said this lets Beijing’s intelligence arm track politicians, spies, activists—you name it—by exploiting the networks we all depend on. The group sneaked into these networks so deeply that security officials believe China’s cyber tools now rival the best in the U.S. and its allies.

Now for some cyber-espionage flavor: The FBI and Mandiant, that big-name security firm, revealed a campaign in which hackers impersonated Congressman John Moolenaar, chair of the U.S. House Select Committee dealing with China trade issues. Just as Trump administration officials were starting sensitive trade talks with Beijing in Sweden, emails “from” Moolenaar landed in inboxes of trade groups, big law firms, and government agencies. Why would a congressman send key legislation from a Gmail? Because the attachment was infected malware, traced by Mandiant straight to the infamous APT41, a hacker gang working with China’s Ministry of State Security. The malware could burrow into networks if anyone dared to double-click. This was about stealing America’s trade playbook, as Moolenaar himself admitted, and possibly influencing future policy moves.

Industrial espionage has gone slick and subtle. According to U.S. and Canadian intelligence bulletins, Chinese-backed investors are now using long-term courtship strategies: think innovation summits and pitch competitions. They’ll make a friendly investment in a cutting-edge AI or cybersecurity startup, get a peek under the hood, and quietly copy the core tech, thanks to their board seat and access, as documented in counterintelligence briefings. Some startups found out the hard way—a Chinese competitor rolling out a near-identical product, reverse-engineered from the inside.

The supply chain’s not safe either. The Czech Republic’s national cyber agency recently flagged the nightmare of Chinese hardware—smart meters, PV inverters, phones, AI chips—quietly sending data back to the motherland. These devices are getting so embedded in critical U.S. infrastructure—energy, vehicles, even hospitals—that pulling them out means rewiring the way we power and live in America.

Let’s zoom out for the risk horizon. Experts agree that China’s National Intelligence Law of 2017, which legally binds any Chinese company to help state snoops, lets Beijing weaponize both state champions and innocent-seeming startups as cyber proxies. Their latest R&D blends crime gangs for plausible deniability and software supply chain backdoors—making attribution a nightmare for U.S. defenders.

Looking forward, security leaders like Bill Leider from Axies Group warn that we’re entering a golden age of state-backed cyber offensives—where industrial spycraft is seamless with organized digital crime, and no tech startup or enterprise is too small to fly under the radar.

Thanks for tuning in, listeners! Subscribe for more, and don’t forget: Only the paranoid survive—especially in tech. This has been a quiet please production, for more check out quiet please dot ai.

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