China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday rejected calls from Anthropic’s CEO for the United States to impose restrictions on China’s artificial intelligence (AI) development, emphasizing the need for cooperative global governance. The remarks came amid heightened concerns over AI’s competitive landscape and are expected to figure prominently in an upcoming meeting between former President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Dario Amodei, CEO of the AI company Anthropic, published an essay last week warning that if China gains a lead in AI, it could pose significant risks to the United States and global security. He advocated for continued U.S. restrictions on the export of advanced AI chips and related technologies to China to maintain American technological dominance. Amodei also predicted that without a coordinated slowdown in progress, AI “agents” could potentially dominate the internet within six to 12 months.
Responding to a question about Amodei’s essay at a briefing on Monday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun cautioned against what he described as fearmongering and confrontation. He urged all nations to collaborate on AI governance, rejecting competition that could hinder global progress. Guo’s comments highlight China’s stance against U.S. efforts to contain its AI capabilities.
The issue has elicited mixed reactions within U.S. leadership. On Sunday, Trump downplayed calls for intervention, asserting that the United States currently leads China in AI development and emphasizing the stakes involved with the phrase, “whoever wins AI, wins.”
China has cultivated significant advancements in AI, with domestic firms producing powerful models that in some cases rival the capabilities of U.S. counterparts, often at lower costs. President Xi has advocated for establishing a global framework for AI governance through an initiative involving Global South countries, portraying China as a leader in promoting open-source AI development. Additionally, Chinese security officials have called for accelerating mechanisms to manage AI-related security risks.
State-run media in China criticized Amodei’s essay, describing it as a disguised attempt to contain China’s AI progress. An editorial in the Global Times labeled the essay a “Cold War playbook” aimed at restricting Chinese innovation under the guise of global security concerns.
The controversy follows a joint cybersecurity advisory issued this month by the FBI, National Security Agency, and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which accused Chinese AI developers of engaging in aggressive tactics to extract capabilities from advanced U.S. models, such as Anthropic’s Claude and OpenAI’s GPT. China’s Commerce Ministry dismissed these allegations as baseless, defending the practice of “distillation” as common across the industry and accusing the U.S. of seeking to monopolize the AI sector.
Experts note that both countries are intent on preventing the other from establishing technological dominance. Lizzi C. Lee, a fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis, observed that Beijing faces a dilemma: balancing cooperation on AI safety with challenges posed by U.S. restrictions on China’s access to critical computational technologies. “So from Beijing’s perspective, there is an obvious question: If the U.S. wants China to cooperate on frontier safety while also restricting its access to frontier compute, what exactly does that cooperation look like?” Lee said.
The dialogue between Washington and Beijing will continue as the global community grapples with the risks and governance of rapidly advancing AI technologies.