China Rejects US Calls to Slow AI Development, Citing Sovereignty

China Pushes Back on AI Slowdown Proposals

China has firmly rejected recent calls from American AI leaders to slow the pace of frontier artificial intelligence development, viewing such proposals as strategic attempts to preserve U.S. technological dominance rather than genuine safety concerns.

Last week, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei proposed a "worldwide pacing of the frontier" that would require cooperation with China. He explicitly framed the proposal as necessary "to keep democracies' AI lead over autocracies as large as possible" and advocated for continued export controls on advanced chips to China.

China's foreign ministry responded by saying "fearmongering, confrontation and vicious competition will only disrupt the process of global AI governance," according to The Guardian, which first reported these details.

"China is definitely not receptive" to a slowdown on U.S. terms, said Lian Jye Su from technology research group Omdia. For Beijing, AI represents a "core sovereignty capability," and the government sees slowdown calls as attempts to lock in American advantage while Chinese companies work to close the gap with U.S. frontier models.

Why it matters

The divergence reveals fundamentally different approaches to AI governance between the world's two AI superpowers. While U.S. companies increasingly warn of catastrophic risks, China is accelerating AI adoption across its economy—from manufacturing to healthcare—viewing technological leadership as essential to national competitiveness. This split complicates prospects for global coordination on AI safety, even as both nations share underlying concerns about advanced AI risks.

Common Ground on Safety Concerns

Despite the political friction, analysts say there's more alignment on AI safety than surface rhetoric suggests. This week China released the third iteration of its AI safety governance framework, which now addresses risks from AI agents, cybersecurity threats from frontier models, and recursive self-improvement scenarios.

"In many ways, I think there is more common ground than people might assume between what Amodei is saying and what the Chinese government is saying," said Gabriel Wagner, a researcher at Concordia, a Beijing-based AI safety consultancy.

Leia Wang from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace noted that neither government appears fully prepared for potential loss-of-control incidents, though China's centralized authority over critical infrastructure may position it better to address AI disasters than the United States.

Balancing Safety with Economic Growth

China's approach prioritizes both safety and rapid deployment. The country enshrined AI development as a growth priority in its latest Five Year Plan, with local governments offering funding and low rents to AI companies. Factories across China's manufacturing base are being encouraged to integrate AI into their processes.

"Most people treat AI as an already-useful everyday tool, not an abstract threat, so the practical attitude is to live with it," said Ni Tao, founding editor of tech website yangtzeer.com. "There is real anxiety about jobs and misinformation, but it coexists with a strong belief that China must master AI rather than slow down."

China has maintained an algorithm registry since 2022 and recently issued regulations on AI agents and companion AIs. According to Concordia AI, recent warnings on agents suggest Beijing is shifting focus "from controlling what AI says to controlling what it does."

President Trump is scheduled to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Washington next week, with AI expected on the agenda, though analysts remain skeptical about prospects for major breakthroughs.

These details were first reported by The Guardian.