Behind China's 'fearmongering' claim is a fundamental fear about AI

When the leaders of major US tech groups all echoed calls to "slow the pace" of artificial intelligence development, the underlying message targeted a specific and, in their view, uncontained threat: China.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei issued a blunt assessment that a "Chinese lead in AI would pose great danger for the United States and the world" and urged Washington to restrict sales of key tech to Beijing.

The warning was met by a forceful rejection from Beijing, which used state media to label the warnings as a "Cold War playbook" for the AI sector.

China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun also accused the US executives of "fearmongering" and warned that "vicious competition will only disrupt the process of global AI governance, which serves no-one's interests".

But the phrase "vicious competition" is a hollow accusation for China to lob at Washington, given it is also engaged in the race for AI supremacy.

China warns about AI risks amid race for dominance

China's ambitious goals to integrate AI into 90 per cent of the country's economy by 2030 are underpinned by its plans to ultimately achieve worldwide dominance in the sector.

To do so, it wants to be entirely self-sufficient and position itself as the world leader that other countries would have to rely on for their infrastructure and tech.

China has spent decades perfecting the industry-supremacy playbook in areas like electric vehicles and solar panels, and AI is next on the agenda.

So it's no surprise China is resisting any calls for a slowdown — especially when its main rival is still surging ahead.

But that doesn't mean China is unbothered by the potential threats that AI could pose in the future.

Over recent months, Beijing officials have been more openly vocal about the risks surrounding the technology, including President Xi Jinping who warned AI "should always remain under human control".

And just a few days ago, in a further sign of China's growing unease around the impacts of technological developments, the country's top intelligence official released an illuminating article that listed Beijing's perceived AI threats.

Prominent among them was the potential for AI to threaten the Chinese Communist Party's hold on power.

"Artificial intelligence is penetrating all aspects of human society at an unprecedented speed, breadth, and depth, profoundly reshaping the global economic structure, power dynamics, innovation paradigms, and social governance logic," Ministry of State Security Chen Yixin wrote.

"Various hostile forces and individuals with ulterior motives abuse generative artificial intelligence technologies such as deepfake audio and video, AI-generated text and images, and intelligent online trolls … waging a propaganda war and a cognitive war against us, directly threatening our political security, institutional security, and ideological security."

The article also listed other risks, including in areas of warfare, social governance and attacking critical infrastructure.

Notably, it did not canvass the same concerns about AI posing an existential threat to humanity that have been expressed in America.

Both China and US want to win AI race

China's response to AI's projected hazards has been an open call for worldwide cooperation on AI technologies, including proposals that would put China at the forefront of global AI governance.

Earlier this year, it set up The World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization, which aimed to bring governments together to develop frameworks for the "beneficial, safe and fair" future of AI.

About 30 countries signed up for the initiative — but none of them were Western.

At the BRICS summit in early September, President Xi also proposed creating a community for open-source AI and letting countries with less developed technological sectors tap into China's expertise.

All of these initiatives put China at the helm of discussions and give it the power to embed its own institutions in developing a global rule book.

A global AI conversation that's led by China also ultimately serves Beijing's political and diplomatic ambitions to rival the hegemony of the United States and win the AI race.

Analysts have said managing the risks of AI and future development will require the leaders of China and America to have meaningful engagement on the issue — which, at the moment, seems unlikely.

The opportunity for a starting point on those conversations is likely to present itself next week when Xi is due to meet US President Donald Trump at the White House.

But in the AI race, where both leaders want their team to win, there are low expectations that either side would be willing to give any ground, while the other still surges ahead.