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For months, Chinese chip manufacturer ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) had been hiking prices on Huawei, one of the country’s biggest technology companies. The chipmaker held firm when Huawei demanded relief from the escalating costs, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The standoff came to a head on CXMT’s factory floor in June. A group of engineers from a chipmaking-equipment vendor with deep strategic ties to Huawei had been working in the cleanrooms at CXMT’s core research and development zone in Hefei, Anhui province. ​Without warning, CXMT ordered the engineers, who had been helping with equipment maintenance, to pack their tools and leave the factory floor immediately, the two sources said.