Originally published in the Eye on Digital China newsletter on Saturday, November 14, 2026.
Subscribe now and get the next one in your inbox (Prefer Substack? Find me there.).

 
In one week, at least 242 hashtags about the Jensen Huang scandal trended across China’s social media platforms. The conversation began with a cheating scandal. After Huang stepped down as Nvidia CEO, it turned into a debate over US–China tech rivalry and what it means to be a Chinese face in American tech.

What a week it has been. Earlier this year, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang went completely viral in China for his surprise appearance at the Xi–Trump summit in Beijing and for casually enjoying noodles in the hutongs. That almost feels like a lifetime ago now that Huang is at the center of this unprecedented backlash.

As I started writing about Chinese responses to Jensen Huang’s explosive mea culpa letter following reports of a relationship with former Megaspeed tech executive Alice Huang,^[1] new reports of a second and third affair with Nvidia employees quickly followed. Then Huang resigned as CEO of Nvidia, the world’s leading AI chipmaker. This newsletter therefore comes later than I planned—but that may actually be a good thing, as it’s allowed me to track how the conversation evolved during the week.

While the main storyline in the West was all about a Chinese female spy infiltrating the most powerful US chip company and a tech billionaire whose affair raised national security concerns, the main narratives in China largely dismissed the spy angle as an anti-China smear and focused on completely different aspects of the scandal.

From November 8–14, at least 242 different hashtags about the Jensen Huang/Nvidia scandal trended across China’s most popular social media platforms, with at least ten reaching No. 1 on the trending charts.

While the initial focus was on Huang’s infidelity to his family, there was a clear shift in social sentiment on Chinese social media after he announced his resignation as Nvidia CEO on November 12.

Meanwhile, there has also been some online censorship of the story.

🗞️ QUICK SCROLLS

📈 Is China’s AI price war over? After a period of offering as much as possible to users at relatively low prices, Chinese AI (LLM) companies are now raising their prices. Last week, DeepSeek – known as the cheapest LLM model around – announced a raise in its API prices, showing that LLM models in China, like food delivery platforms, follow a clear strategy of first attracting users and subsidizing growth, then monetizing once users are locked in.

🐸 “Antibiotic bullfrogs” are a new cause for concern. Bullfrogs sold through e-commerce channels, popularly used in various dishes (like bullfrog hotpot), have been found to contain excessive antibiotic residues after being tested by an independent Shanghai investigation team. Antibiotics are widely used in bullfrog farming.

🌾 A 67-year-old farmer from Anhui ruined 25 acres of crops after following a chatbot’s advice on which pesticides to use. The AI tool recommended a strategy including fomesafen, which killed the farmer’s entire sesame plant crop. Chinese state media highlighted the story as a warning to the growing number of senior citizens who are relying on AI a bit too much.

👁️ A Chinese ad campaign for contact lenses has been taken offline because it starred an AI actress who doesn’t actually have eyes. Last week, I reported on the success of this AI actress, Fang Taozi (方桃子), in the AI micro drama “Laid-Off Girl” (被裁掉的女孩). After a Chinese cosmetic contact-lens brand paid a large sum to feature the actress in its commercial, regulators flagged it because the virtual actress claimed…