Will Washington’s tech crackdown test fragile US-China truce?

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Technology has become an increasingly contested front in the strategic competition between the US and China. Illustration: Shutterstock; colours altered with Shutterstock AI

Nayan Sethin WashingtonPublished: 1:07am, 19 Aug 2026Updated: 2:46am, 19 Aug 2026

Ahead of next month’s expected summit between US President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Washington, a low profile US regulatory agency has opened a new front in the technology battle between the world’s two superpowers, even as it attempts to avoid sabotaging the vital high-stakes meeting.

The latest action by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in July saw it advance stringent bans on new Chinese robots and power inverters.

The move came after months of FCC measures that did not prompt a direct retaliatory response from Beijing, even as the agency continued to expand its restrictions.

Although China held its fire ahead of the last Trump-Xi summit in May, that restraint appears to have ended following the FCC’s latest steps.Beijing’s retaliation last week – imposing drone export controls and sanctioning US testing firms – signalled the expansion of an already crowded field of tit-for-tat actions involving tariffs, export controls and the blacklisting of each other’s companies.

Former senior FCC officials defended the agency’s national security mandate to protect US technology sectors and communication networks from Chinese influence.