What is China saying about the US-led calls to slow down AI development?

China has issued its own response to a weekend dominated by US AI giants reaching a rare consensus to call for a government-enforced slowdown at the frontier of the technology. 

According to Beijing’s top intelligence official and state media, the message out of Anthropic via Amodei, Sam Altman for OpenAI, Musk for xAI, and others who have entered the conversation since is a “Cold War” tactic. The country also warned that the technology has become a security threat in its own right.

China calls out ‘Cold War playbook’ 

According to Anthropic’s Dario Amodei’s “We Must Pace the Frontier” essay, the chief executive pushed for US authorities to curb chip export routes and model distillation by Chinese labs as part of a publication that presented a framework to slow down the pace of frontier model development as a matter of safety.

In an editorial by China’s state-backed Global Times, the view from China is based on skepticism that this is an “attempt to curb China’s AI development through technological barriers and regulatory monopolies, uphold Washington’s monopolistic hegemony in cutting-edge technology, and exclude China from the global AI governance system.” 

The state-backed outlet also called out the “silent AI Cold War” as “hypocritical and short-sighted,” which could raise the “risks of loss of control” if China is shut out of the AI innovation field.

China’s spy chief warns of AI risks

In a column for China Cyberspace, a journal run by the Cyberspace Administration of China, State Security Minister Chen Yixin doubled down on the view from Beijing that AI had become “a new arena for strategic rivalry among major powers.” 

Chen’s concerns ranged from hostile forces weaponizing AI to mass-produce and propagate false narratives and harmful content to stoke “public-opinion wars” and “cognitive warfare.” 

Yixin specifically named models from US AI giants Anthropic and OpenAI as advanced systems capable of reducing the cost and skills required to run cyberattacks on critical infrastructure. 

Chen’s message did not include any hint of slowing down. Rather, the intelligence chief urged more financial commitment to Chinese model makers, computing capacity, and data.

Chinese experts are skeptical of motives behind Amodei’s warning

While Chen stayed general, Chinese analysts quoted by state media went directly at Amodei. Experts speaking to the Global Times called his rhetoric “inappropriate,” “hostile,” and “groundless,” saying his case was driven by commercial and competitive interests rather than a shared safety concern. 

The paper counted 12 mentions of China in the essay and pointed to Amodei’s own line that his measures, executed well, “would slow China’s progress enough to widen America’s lead significantly over the next 3-5 years.”

Xiao Qian, vice dean of Tsinghua University’s Institute for AI International Governance, tied that to a market threat: Anthropic’s closed-model approach is losing ground to Chinese open-source systems on cost, performance, and developer reach. 

Liu Shaoshan, an AI director in Shenzhen who once worked with Amodei, argued that casting AI as civilization-defining conveniently reframes an AI company as “strategic infrastructure,” lifting its valuation and policy weight.

What Beijing wants next, and where Washington stands

China’s foreign ministry kept its official line broad. Spokesperson Guo Jiakun urged all sides to “promote an open, inclusive and benevolent approach to AI,” warning that “fomenting various threats, engaging in confrontation and malicious competition” would only damage global governance efforts. 

President Xi Jinping used the BRICS summit in India to pitch an AI-driven industrialization push among emerging economies, per the South China Morning Post.

Washington, for its part, is not buying the slowdown. President Donald Trump dismissed the risk warnings on September 13 as “very negative forces,” insisting “whoever wins AI wins.” 

The two governments are expected to discuss frontier AI safety in mid-September, an issue that could surface when Trump and Xi meet on September 24.

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