China criticises idea it is in ‘malicious competition’ over AI

On Monday, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun told reporters that “narratives of threat, confrontation, and malicious competition serve only to disrupt the process of global AI governance and are not in anyone’s interest”.

“All parties should work together to advance AI in a manner that is open, inclusive, beneficial to all, and oriented toward the good,” he added.

His comments highlight the difficulties in getting an agreement between the world’s two leading AI powers.

An agreement between the US and China to regulate AI development is “next to impossible”, says Chang Jun Yan, an assistant professor with the military studies programme at Singapore’s S Rajaratnam School of International Studies.

“As part of each state’s core national security interests, cooperation in taking things slower and more safely in relation to AI, is very, very unlikely.”

Artificial intelligence now sits at the heart of the US-China rivalry as the world’s two largest economies seek to gain an edge in advanced tech. Despite US export bans on critical chips, Chinese AI innovation has been expanding, driven by open-source technology and Beijing’s backing.

Many experts believe the US is still ahead, and Chinese firms are trying to catch up as they struggle to raise the hundreds of billions of dollars that investors are ploughing into American AI.

But Beijing, including Chinese leader Xi Jinping himself, has also spoken about the risks posed by AI. China must “balance development and security”, and introduce and improve relevant laws and ethical guidelines, and strengthen prevention of risks, to “safeguard the interests of the people and national security”, state security minister Chen Yixin wrote on Sunday.

He warned of the dangers of “hostile forces” such as foreign intelligence using AI and called for international cooperation.

“There are strong signals that Washington and Beijing share an understanding of frontier risks,” Kenton Thibaut, a senior resident China fellow at the Atlantic Council, wrote recently.

China has “technical reasons” to work with the US, she argues, because its developers would be able to see how their models are deployed outside China, and detect and understand vulnerabilities.

In July, China set up the World AI Cooperation Organisation, which aims to shape global AI governance. And speaking at the Brics summit in India on Sunday, Xi proposed creating a community for open-source AI.

All this comes as calls for AI regulation grow louder in the US, especially after a former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon said last week that “there is a strong chance that we could all die in the immediate future” if the current pace of development continued.

Since then top industry bosses, such as Dario Amodei, have called for a slowdown and more regulation.

“We need ways to ensure that alignment and safety techniques stay ahead of progress in model capabilities,” Open AI’s chief executive Sam Altman wrote on X on Monday, which was echoed by Microsoft boss Satya Nadella who said AI development “cannot be controlled by a handful of entities”.

But US President Donald Trump downplayed the risks, saying that he wanted to keep the US’s lead over China “because whoever wins AI, wins”.

The competition is fierce.

The former Anthropic employee Coxon told the BBC that there needed to be “some sort of coordinated slowdown with China, if we’re going to avoid a race at an international scale”.

As Trump prepares to host Xi at the White House next week, the two sides are trying to include AI on the agenda, the South China Morning Post reports.

It is also likely to be part of the talks between US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice-Premier He Lifeng, who are trying to meet before next week’s summit, the paper said. Vice-Premier He runs the agency that oversees the country’s economic planning, including AI development.

While collaboration between the US and China is important, experts say the stakes are high for both countries.

“If China establishes a durable lead in frontier AI, this will not be viewed in Washington as losing a technology race,” says Chasen Nevett, managing director at Hong Kong-based firm, Forani Investments.

“It will be viewed as losing part of the strategic infrastructure of the next industrial era.”

Additional reporting by Osmond Chia