China-US pact on super intelligence calls for Asean alert

When the United States and China begin agreeing on the vocabulary of their strategic relationship, Asean should pay close attention.

The September summit between President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping produced two developments of particular importance.

Washington and Beijing agreed to establish a dialogue on what the United States now calls “super intelligence” (SI), accompanied by a bilateral communication channel for serious SI incidents. The next SI summit is in November 2026.

Second, the relationship was framed in official Chinese reporting around a “constructive relationship of strategic stability.” The phrase is important.

It suggests that the two largest powers are attempting to place intense competition within a framework where cooperation remains possible.

This should not be mistaken for a formal alliance or strategic partnership.

But politically, the language points towards treating China as a constructive strategic interlocutor — and potentially a constructive strategic partner where common interests converge — rather than merely an adversary that must be contained.

Asean should understand the significance.

For years, US-China relations have been defined largely through rivalry: tariffs, semiconductors, Taiwan, the South China Sea, military competition and technological restrictions. None of these disagreements has disappeared.

Yet Washington and Beijing are simultaneously discovering that certain technologies may become too consequential to manage exclusively through competition.

Super intelligence is potentially one of them.

President Trump announced at the United Nations that his administration would use “super intelligence” rather than artificial intelligence.

Following his meeting with Xi, Trump said the Chinese leader appeared receptive to the terminology, while Beijing indicated that it respected Washington’s choice of wording.

Terminology matters.

“Superintelligence” conventionally has a much narrower technical meaning: Intelligence exceeding human capabilities across virtually all cognitive domains.

The Trump administration appears to be using “super intelligence” more broadly as a replacement for AI. These meanings should not be confused.

Nevertheless, the creation of a US-China dialogue on super intelligence is strategically serious.

The two powers are beginning to discuss the risks and benefits associated with advanced AI while creating a channel through which serious incidents can potentially be communicated.

This resembles, conceptually rather than technologically, an embryonic form of crisis management.

During the nuclear age, Washington and Moscow eventually realised that strategic competition required communication precisely because miscalculation could become catastrophic.

AI is not a nuclear weapon. Its development, diffusion and applications are fundamentally different.

Yet the strategic principle is familiar: As technology becomes more powerful, misunderstanding between the powers controlling much of it becomes increasingly dangerous. Asean must therefore be warned.

If Washington and Beijing become the principal architects of the rules surrounding super intelligence, Southeast Asia risks becoming a rule-taker rather than a rule-shaper.

Asean represents almost 700 million people and is rapidly attracting data centres, semiconductor investments, cloud infrastructure and AI-related industries.

Yet much of the frontier technology, computing capacity and foundational architecture remains controlled outside Southeast Asia.

Technological dependence can eventually become strategic dependence.

Asean therefore needs its own position on super intelligence.

This does not mean attempting to compete directly with the United States or China.

Such an ambition would be unrealistic. Malaysia’s strength, in particular, has always rested on what can be called Quiescent Diplomacy.

It uses a silent but strategic approach to create sufficient diplomatic and institutional space so that larger powers recognise the importance of Southeast Asia including AI and SI.

Asean, invariably , Malaysia, should insist on meaningful human control over autonomous systems.

This involves stronger cyber security standards. Just as importantly sovereign protection of data. Due safeguards are required to protect critical infrastructure.

As and when regional protocols for dealing with major AI incidents are made more resilient, the region can handle the dawn of the age of SI.

Asean should also use Asean Plus Three, the East Asia Summit and other Asean-led mechanisms to ensure that conversations about advanced AI do not become an exclusively US-China enterprise.

The emerging US-China rapprochement over terminology and strategic stability is encouraging. But it also contains a warning.

Washington and Beijing remain strategic competitors.

Yet they are demonstrating that, where systemic dangers demand it, competition can coexist with constructive strategic cooperation.

Asean must ensure that it has a seat at the table when the rules governing those dangers are written.

The age of artificial intelligence has arrived. If the age of super intelligence follows, Asean cannot afford to wake up after Washington and Beijing have already determined its rules.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.