(Bloomberg) -- The latest high-stakes drama between the world’s biggest superpowers is unfolding in the unlikeliest of places: a Hong Kong office tower full of accountants.

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It’s here, on the 23rd floor of Prince’s Building in central Hong Kong, where number crunchers and regulators will determine the fate of hundreds of billions of dollars in US-listed Chinese shares -- and possibly the future of financial cooperation between Washington and Beijing.

US inspectors from the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board have converged on the financial hub to find out whether Chinese authorities will grant full access to audit work papers needed to prevent US delistings by companies including e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.

At the PricewaterhouseCoopers office in Prince’s Building and a KPMG office in southern Hong Kong, the two sides are facing off across conference tables or huddling in separate rooms to strategize, often late into the night, according to people familiar with the matter.

In the middle are auditors at firms including PwC. They’re fielding detailed questions from the PCAOB along with directions from Chinese authorities on which information they can’t divulge because it’s considered a state secret.

In some cases Chinese officials have asked to black out names, addresses and salary levels in company documents, the people said. So far, however, the redacted information has mostly been inconsequential to the overall integrity of the inspections, the people added.

While it’s common that local regulators are present when PCAOB officials carry out inspections around the world, the US has said it will determine if the Chinese presence has hindered their access to audit papers and personnel, emphasizing they must have full access to documents without redactions.

“Any interference with our ability to retain information as needed is a dealbreaker,” PCAOB Chair Erica Williams said in a speech on Sept. 22.

The PCAOB declined to comment on the specifics of the inspections for this article, as did KPMG and PwC. The China Securities Regulatory Commission and the Ministry of Finance didn’t immediately respond to a request for a comment.

The stakes are high after a breakthrough deal in August to allow US regulators to examine audit working papers of US-listed Chinese companies for the first time in two decades. More than 200 firms, including Alibaba, Netease Inc. and Baidu Inc., risk being kicked off New York stock exchanges should they fail to pass muster.