How the Jensen Huang affair changes the outlook for U.S.-China relations

BEIJING — Prolonged U.S. Congressional scrutiny of former Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's affair with an alleged Chinese spy raises the stakes for already tense relations between the world's two largest economies.

Nvidia's Huang resigned Thursday, and agreed to testify before Congress sometime before Thanksgiving on Nov. 26. House Foreign Affairs Chair Brian Mast, R-Fla., told reporters there could be "public hearings for other people or other things down road."

"I worry this incident will deteriorate the atmosphere dramatically in Washington against China, and also export control matters, and also the Trump administration in its way of dealing with China," said a Beijing-based foreign policy researcher, who requested anonymity as academics risk discipline or even removal for speaking to the media.

The researcher warned of a possible return to a situation like that in the 1990s, when a "Chinese-American" nuclear physicist was suspected of sharing nuclear secrets with the Chinese government, resulting in a federal prosecution. The court ultimately dismissed all but one of 59 counts.

Now the bilateral relationship, supported by a fragile trade truce, faces another espionage allegation. And this time it's around the tech executive at the heart of the U.S.-China competition over artificial intelligence.

"This isn't really about Jensen," said Mitch Presnick, non-resident honorary fellow on the Chinese economy, Center for China Analysis at the Asia Society.

He noted how some in Washington prefer measures to exclude China and disagreed with the semiconductor executive's message that American technology needed to be used in China in order to remain relevant to global tech development.

Washington started to restrict Nvidia's ability to sell advanced chips to China in 2022. But the Trump administration eased many Biden-era restrictions in 2025.

Meanwhile, Nvidia's Huang advocated his views across a spectrum of markets from the U.S. to China to Taiwan to Germany.

At the peak of his influence, he shared a banquet table in September with U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping at a summit in Washington, D.C. The two presidents are next expected to meet alongside the APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting from Nov. 18 to 19 in Shenzhen, China.

The political landscape has swiftly changed, with Democrats sweeping U.S. midterm elections on Nov. 3 and turmoil over subsequent reports about Huang's alleged Beijing spy connection. Jensen Huang admitted to an affair over the weekend.

It remains unclear whether any sensitive information was shared.

China's Foreign Ministry has called the "Chinese spy" allegation unfounded "smears against China."