Trump not expected to raise Alice Huang case with China’s Xi, say US officials

US President Donald Trump is not expected to discuss with Chinese President Xi Jinping the case involving a businesswoman whose ties to former Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang raised national security concerns, US officials said on Friday.

Trump is set to meet with Xi next week on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) forum in Shenzhen, China, as part of a four-day trip to Asia. The meeting will come just days after Jensen Huang resigned as Nvidia CEO on Thursday, capping a spectacular fall from the chip industry’s heights.

Though semiconductors have been a major flash point in US-China relations, the US president is not expected to raise the latest issue with Xi for now, the officials said,

“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,” one senior administration official told reporters.

A second US official added: “I don’t expect the president to raise it, the Alice Huang issue.”

The officials were responding to a reporter’s question about whether Trump would raise the allegations involving Alice Huang with Xi.

On Tuesday, the independent members of Nvidia’s board said they hired Wall Street law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to conduct an independent investigation after the New York Times and Wall Street Journal reported on Jensen Huang’s relations with the businesswoman, Alice Huang, as well as US authorities’ suspicions that she was spying for China.

Beijing has denied she is a spy. Alice Huang could not be reached. Reuters has not independently verified whether Alice Huang was working on behalf of the Chinese government. The Justice Department has said it has not reached any conclusion about Alice Huang’s affiliation with the Chinese government.

Jensen Huang apologized in a statement on Sunday for being unfaithful to his wife and for disappointing the company. His statement did not specifically name Alice Huang, a former top executive of Nvidia customer Megaspeed International. The two are not related.