Welcome to the 90th edition of our weekly newsletter! I’m , a fellow with the Center for International Security and Strategy (CISS) at Tsinghua University, Council Member of The Chinese Association of American Studies and a visiting scholar at the Paul Tsai China Center of Yale Law School (fall 2024).

ChinAffairsplus is a newsletter that shares articles by Chinese academics on topics such as China’s foreign policy, China-U.S. relations, China-Europe relations, and more. This newsletter was co-founded by my research assistant, ZHANG Xueyu, and me.

Through carefully selected Chinese academic articles, we aim to provide you with key insights into the issues that China’s academic and strategic communities are focused on. We will highlight why each article matters and the most important takeaways. Questions and feedback can be addressed to sch0625@gmail.com

Today, we have selected an article written by Yang Jiemian, which traces the historical evolution and theoretical development of China’s vision of ‘’community of shared future”, examining successive Chinese leaders’ approach to Asia and the Global South as central pillars of its foreign policy and global governance strategy.

Summary

Asia is the world’s largest continent and the birthplace of major civilizations. Thinkers like Marx and Lenin paid close attention to its struggles for national liberation. Building on this legacy, generations of Chinese Communist Party leaders have made important theoretical and practical contributions to Asia’s revolutionary and progressive movements.

Today, President Xi Jinping has introduced a series of initiatives—including the ‘community with a shared future for mankind’, the ‘Asian community with a shared future’, and a ‘community with a shared future in China’s neighborhood’. China is working with its Asian neighbors to build a shared future through economic cooperation, joint peacebuilding, and cultural exchange. At the same time, it is advancing similar goals globally in partnership with the international community.

These efforts provide a roadmap for reforming regional and global governance. Their close alignment ensures that the vision of a shared future translates into tangible outcomes, while keeping governance systems on a principled and stable path. Progress won’t happen overnight. Building an Asian ‘community of shared future’—and reshaping global governance—means tackling historical legacies step by step, promoting development as a basis for security amid geopolitical rivalry, and using digital transformation to upgrade economic and technological capacity. It will take sustained effort from the people of Asia and beyond, and active cooperation from the wider international community.

Why it matters

In April 2025, Beijing convened a high-level Central Conference on Work Relating to Neighboring Countries, updating its Asia and ‘’peripheral’‘ strategy just as it accelerated ‘’community of shared future’‘ agreements with Central Asia and concluded the China–ASEAN FTA 3.0 upgrade. At the same time, tensions in the South China Sea and around Taiwan have intensified. Against this backdrop, Asia is no longer just a regional theatre—it is the core of the Global South and the primary stage on which China tests its ideas about regional order and global governance. Understanding how Beijing itself conceptualizes ‘’Asia,’‘ ‘’neighbors,’‘ and ‘’communities of shared future’‘ has become essential for anyone trying to read the trajectory of Asian security, trade regimes, and development initiatives.

A Chinese perspective is particularly crucial here. Western debates often treat Asian and Global South countries mainly as objects of major-power competition. By contrast, Chinese leaders, Party theorists, and policy journals describe them as partners in concentric ‘’communities’‘ extending from the neighborhood to the global level. As Kan, Wong and Chan note in “What China Doesn’t Want”, China’s official speeches and texts are a key window into what its leaders are trying to signal about their priorities, limits, and red lines. Taking those texts seriously—rather than dismissing them as mere slogans—is indispensable for governments and scholars in Asia, Africa, and Latin America deciding how to respond.

The featured article is especially valuable because it reads this discourse historically and systematically. By tracing a line from Marx and Lenin’s reflections on Asia through Mao’s ‘’three worlds,’‘ Deng’s development-first regionalism, Jiang and Hu’s ‘’Asia rise’‘ narratives, to Xi Jinping’s layered ‘’community of shared future’‘, it shows that today’s outreach to the Global South and Asia rests on a long-evolving leadership vision. At the same time, the article largely adopts Beijing’s vantage point: regional frictions, local pushback and power asymmetries are underplayed. Readers should therefore treat it both as a rich guide to how China understands its role—and as a reminder that smaller Asian and Global South states may read the same ‘’community’‘ language quite differently.

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Key Points

Historical Context, Era of Progress, and Theoretical Evolution

Asia, the cradle of ancient civilizations, long suffered under colonial oppression and imperial domination. Marx foresaw China’s revolution as the ‘’spark’‘ that could ignite Europe’s political upheaval, while exposing the hypocrisy of bourgeois civilization in its colonial brutality. Lenin later hailed Asia’s democratic awakening—from Turkey to China—as the dawn of a new global epoch. Building on this legacy, the Chinese Communist Party linked national liberation with Asia’s collective resurgence and global revolutionary progress.

• Mao Zedong — Revolution and Solidarity

Mao viewed Asia as the vanguard of anti-colonial struggle. His ‘’intermediate zone’‘ and ‘’Three Worlds’‘ theories placed Asia, Africa, and Latin America at the heart of resisting hegemony. Advocating the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, he urged postcolonial nations to unite for independent development.

• Jiang Zemin — Cooperation and Institutions

Jiang emphasized Asia’s economic vitality and institutional integration. In the aftermath of the 1997 Asian financial crisis, China’s stability and engagement through APEC, SCO, and Boao Forum deepened regional trust and built frameworks for collective resilience.

• Hu Jintao — Integration and Shared Prosperity

Building on the ‘’scientific outlook on development,’‘ Hu advanced political equality, economic interdependence, and cultural exchange. His leadership saw the establishment of the China–ASEAN Free Trade Area and new crisis-management models, embedding China’s growth within Asia’s broader path toward common prosperity.

The Synergistic Resonance and Mutual Reinforcement of the Three Communities of Shared Future

Since the 18th Party Congress, facing profound global changes, Xi Jinping has proposed three interlinked visions—a community of shared future for mankind, for Asia, and for neighboring countries—forming concentric circles that offer China’s integrated wisdom and solutions to global challenges.

• Human Community: China’s Global Response to a Century of Change

Entering the 21st century’s turbulent second decade, Xi Jinping positioned China as a responsible power confronting global uncertainty. In his 2013 Moscow address, he articulated the idea of a ‘’community of shared future for mankind,’‘ later expanded at the 2015 UN General Assembly into a comprehensive framework encompassing five pillars: partnership, security, development, cultural dialogue, and ecological harmony. Through subsequent global development, security, and civilization Initiatives, China has proposed an alternative to zero-sum geopolitics—one grounded in shared values, cooperative governance, and inclusive modernization. This vision fused Marxist internationalism, UN principles, and traditional Chinese thought, defining China’s new global identity as a ‘’builder and contributor’‘ of world order.

• Asian Community: Regional Governance through Interdependence and Inclusion

Facing fragmentation in Asia’s governance architecture, China advanced the concept of an ‘’Asian community of shared future’‘ to operationalize global ideals within regional realities. From Xi’s 2013 APEC address to the 2014 CICA summit, the notion emphasized mutual respect, win-win cooperation, collective security, and cultural inclusiveness. The initiative deepened through the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, and the ‘’China + Central Asia’‘ cooperation model, promoting ‘’open regionalism’‘ distinct from bloc politics. It also cultivated shared ‘’Asian values’‘ of peace, openness, and coexistence, reshaping regional norms on development, digital sovereignty, and counterterrorism coordination—turning Asia into both a testbed and driver of new global governance.

• Neighborhood Community: Shared Modernization and Regional Stability

Surrounded by over twenty neighboring states, China framed its periphery as the cornerstone of peace and prosperity. Since Xi’s 2013 Peripheral Diplomacy Conference, the ‘’Neighborhood community of shared future’‘ has guided policies based on amity, sincerity, mutual benefit, and inclusiveness. By 2025, China had reached consensus with seventeen neighboring countries, forming ‘’two regional clusters’‘ across Central and Southeast Asia. This framework integrates connectivity, economic integration, and joint security, embodying the ‘’China–Central Asia Spirit’‘ of mutual trust and shared modernization. As a laboratory for global community-building, it anchors China’s regional diplomacy while demonstrating how cooperative modernization can reinforce peace and collective progress.

Building Regional and Global Governance Systems Oriented Toward a Community of Shared Future

China’s vision of various communities of shared future provides both direction and impetus for building regional and global governance systems, ensuring that lofty goals translate into concrete progress guided by a shared path forward.

• Rethinking Global Governance: Continuity and Constraints

China views existing regional and global governance systems as both historically significant and structurally flawed. Institutions such as the UN, IMF, and WTO have long upheld peace and development, yet they struggle to reflect a multipolar reality. Western dominance in agenda-setting and the rise of unilateralism—particularly under Trump—have eroded balance and inclusivity. As Oxford’s Ngaire Woods and Chatham House’s Samir Puri note, the world faces a governance gap: outdated institutions risk irrelevance amid shifting power and accelerating crises.

• Reforming from Within: Pragmatic Gradualism

Rejecting both rupture and inertia, China advocates reform through adaptation, not replacement. Guided by the UN Charter and the principles of fairness and shared benefit, Beijing calls for ‘’incremental correction’‘ to enhance representation for developing nations and rebalance rule-making power. Echoing Lula da Silva’s remark that China stands with the Global South against structural inequality, this approach fuses realism with reform—preserving systemic stability while pursuing justice and inclusivity.

• Advancing Asian Cooperation: Regional Foundations for Global Order

Asia remains China’s testing ground for cooperative governance. By engaging existing platforms—APEC, ADB, CICA—and building new ones such as the SCO, AIIB, and the Lancang–Mekong Framework, China promotes dialogue, connectivity, and economic integration. As Carnegie’s Evan Feigenbaum observes, most Asian states seek growth and stability, not confrontation. China’s region-first diplomacy thus aligns with regional aspirations, anchoring Asia’s rise as a cornerstone of a more balanced global governance architecture.

Asia’s Pursuit of Community and Governance Amid Shared Challenges

Amid global upheaval, many nations commend China’s shared-future vision and expect greater leadership in shaping governance. UN Secretary-General António Guterres calls China ‘’a vital pillar of global governance,’‘ while Singaporean scholar Kishore Mahbubani urges Asia to build a fairer, more sustainable order—fulfilling the shared-future ideal’s historic mission.

• From Bilateral Ties to Multilateral Networks

Since the 1950s, China has steadily upgraded its regional diplomacy—from friendly neighborliness to strategic partnerships and, now, shared-future communities. By April 2025, China had reached bilateral ‘’Community of Shared Future’‘ agreements with nearly all of its Asian partners, spanning Southeast, South, and Central Asia. Landmark agreements include the 2024 China–Indonesia joint declaration and the 2025 China–Thailand partnership framework. Beijing has also expanded this vision multilaterally: the 2023 Xi’an Declaration established the China–Central Asia mechanism, while ASEAN and Gulf partners endorsed joint commitments to deeper regional integration. Together, these initiatives signal Asia’s transition from bilateral cooperation toward a more cohesive regional architecture.

• Peace, Prosperity, and Cultural Connectivity

Against the backdrop of U.S.-led bloc politics, China and its Asian partners have invoked the shared-future vision to preserve regional stability and promote growth. The China–Central Asia Summit reaffirmed collective commitment to peace and UN goals, while China–ASEAN trade reached 6.99 trillion yuan in 2024, with the completion of the China–ASEAN FTA 3.0 underscoring rule-making equality among developing nations. Meanwhile, cultural and educational exchanges—from the Asian Civilization Dialogue Conference to Silk Road heritage projects—have deepened mutual understanding, building the human foundation of an Asian community rooted in coexistence and shared progress.

• Navigating Diversity and Emerging Challenges

The realization of a true Asian community faces enduring tests—cultural diversity, geopolitical rivalries, and digital divides. China and its partners advocate phased solutions to historical tensions, prioritize ‘’development for security,’‘ and pursue digital transformation through initiatives like Thailand 4.0 and Vietnam’s 6G program. As Asia’s digital economy surpasses $12.8 trillion, regional innovation hubs are reshaping global production and technology flows, anchoring Asia as a central force in the world’s next governance transformation.

Conclusion

Ultimately, building an Asian community with a shared future is not a slogan but a century-long endeavor—one that demands sustained commitment, pragmatic cooperation, and the courage to overcome both historical and structural divides. Peace remains its precondition: as the wars of the past eight decades remind us, regional prosperity cannot take root amid conflict. Yet stability alone is insufficient. Asia must strengthen its collective capacities—bridging economic disparities, enhancing institutional coordination, and cultivating a shared sense of regional identity.

Unlike Europe or Africa, Asia still lacks a comprehensive framework for integration. Its vast cultural diversity, persistent territorial disputes, and uneven digital development expose deep fissures in political trust and cultural dialogue. Overcoming these divides will require not only material power but also the softer foundations of mutual understanding and respect. At the same time, Asia’s future cannot be built in isolation. Its community must engage the wider world while resisting external pressures that seek to fragment it. If successful, this vision could transform global governance itself—moving it beyond the Western-centric order toward a system that values inclusivity, cooperation, and balance. Whether Asia can realize that promise will shape not only its own destiny but the future of the international system.

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About the Author

Dr. Yang Jiemian is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Foreign Policy Studies and the Center for the Study of Chinese Diplomatic Theory and Practice, as well as Chairman of the Academic Affairs Council at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (SIIS). He serves as Counsellor to the Shanghai Municipal People’s Government and sits on multiple national and municipal associations related to international studies and U.S. relations. His research focuses on international relations, Chinese diplomacy, and U.S. foreign policy. Major works include “China-U.S. Relations in the Post–Cold War Era”, “Grand Cooperation: The Changing World and China’s Global Strategy”, “Grand Integration: Trends of Asian Economic Cooperation”, and “China’s Expo Diplomacy: Theory and Practice”.

About the Publication

The Chinese version of the article was published by International Prospects (《国际展望》). This academic journal is published by the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (SIIS) and is co-organized by the Shanghai International Relations Association. It is China’s first bilingual (Chinese bi-monthly and English quarterly) journal on international relations. International Prospects aims to provide a new academic platform for international relations research, bringing together experts and scholars from both domestic and international circles. The journal serves the development of China’s international relations theory and offers advice and recommendations for China’s diplomatic strategy and policies.

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Welcome to the 11st edition of Ask China! I’m , a fellow with the Center for International Security and Strategy (CISS) at Tsinghua University, Council Member of The Chinese Association of American Studies, a visiting scholar at Paul Tsai China Center of Yale Law School in 2024 and Munich Young Leaders 2025.

ChinAffairsplus is a newsletter that shares articles by Chinese academics on topics such as China’s foreign policy, China-U.S. relations, China-Europe relations, and more. This newsletter was co-founded by my research assistant, ZHANG Xueyu, and me. Through carefully selected Chinese academic articles, we aim to provide you with key insights into the issues that China’s academic and strategic communities are focused on. We will highlight why each article matters and the most important takeaways. Questions and feedback can be addressed to sch0625@gmail.com.

In this newsletter, we address concerns about China’s positions through a Q&A format, while also presenting key points of leading Chinese scholars’ commentaries. Through this series, we aim to provide policymakers, think tanks, and strategic communities overseas with access to Chinese scholars’ views, accompanied by curated academic perspectives that help readers better understand the considerations underlying China’s foreign policy choices.

Background

At the invitation of U.S. President Donald Trump, Chinese President Xi Jinping paid a state visit to the United States from Sept. 23 to 25 local time for bilateral talks. The visit yielded eight deliverables spanning economy and trade, artificial intelligence, people-to-people exchanges and other fields, with both sides agreeing to continue to feature the “constructive strategic stability” in China-U.S. relations.

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Strategic competition between China and the United States continues to intensify, yet the two countries’ leaders have maintained exceptionally frequent engagement. Since their meeting in Busan in October 2025, President Donald Trump and the Chinese leader have met face-to-face three times—in Busan, Beijing, and Washington. If they meet again at the APEC summit in Shenzhen in November and the G20 summit in Miami in December, they could hold five face-to-face meetings within approximately 14 months. Such frequent engagement reflects the combined influence of the international landscape, bilateral dynamics, and domestic political considerations. It is a strategic choice by both major powers to manage differences and balance their interests.

From the perspective of the international landscape, the world is moving toward greater multipolarity, while unilateralism, regional conflicts, and sluggish economic recovery pose growing challenges. Traditional and non-traditional security risks are increasing, and global governance faces mounting pressures. As the world’s two largest economies, China and the United States have a profound impact on global stability and development. Major challenges such as climate change, energy security, nonproliferation, and public health are difficult to address without their coordination. Meanwhile, tensions in one area can easily spill over into others. Conventional diplomatic channels alone cannot resolve fundamental questions about the direction of China-U.S. relations, making head-of-state diplomacy essential for maintaining strategic direction. The crisis surrounding the Strait of Hormuz illustrates this point. Despite differences over regional order, neither country wants an energy crisis to destabilize the global economy. High-level communication is therefore necessary to contain risks and prevent regional instability from escalating into a global crisis.

From the perspective of bilateral relations, structural strategic competition between China and the United States will persist, but neither side can achieve a decisive victory through confrontation. Tariffs, technology restrictions, and resource-related countermeasures impose substantial costs on both economies without enabling either to dominate the other. Neither country can force the other to fundamentally change its development path, nor can either afford uncontrolled competition. For this reason, both countries have proactively adopted an approach of issue segmentation and compartmentalized governance: maintaining competition in technology and industry, establishing guardrails against military risks and tensions in the Taiwan Strait, and preserving cooperation in areas such as climate change and counternarcotics.

Domestic political considerations also drive frequent leader-level engagement. For China, implementing the 15th Five-Year Plan and advancing high-quality development require a stable external environment. As the United States remains the most consequential external variable affecting China’s strategic environment, stabilizing bilateral relations can reduce uncertainty and create more room for domestic development. Meanwhile, China’s growing national strength and accumulated experience in managing strategic competition have strengthened its confidence in pursuing a constructive bilateral relationship while safeguarding its core interests.

For the United States, although the Trump administration regards China as its primary strategic competitor, it does not seek complete decoupling or direct confrontation. Washington faces political polarization, high Treasury yields, inflationary pressures, and midterm elections. Escalating confrontation with China would disrupt American supply chains and harm domestic economic interests. Moreover, Trump places particular emphasis on personal diplomacy, viewing direct leader-to-leader communication as an important means of managing competition while preserving opportunities for economic and technological dialogue.

These frequent interactions send four important signals. First, head-of-state diplomacy is becoming a critical pillar of stability in China-U.S. relations. Regular communication between the two leaders can help prevent disputes from escalating and provide channels for crisis management and implementing agreements. This could gradually establish a more stable framework characterized by strategic guidance from the leaders, implementation by relevant government departments, and institutional mechanisms for managing differences, thereby reducing the risk of major disruptions in bilateral relations.

Second, China-U.S. relations are undergoing strategic adjustment, with both sides seeking to build a “Constructive Relationship of Strategic Stability.” Continued high-level engagement suggests that Beijing and Washington recognize the need for a bilateral relationship based on mutual respect, fairness, and reciprocity. Both countries seek greater stability, more cooperation, and more exchanges, alongside more effective management of differences and strategic competition.

Third, great-power competition is entering a new phase of competitive coexistence through compartmentalized management. In trade, the two sides are maintaining a fragile truce while seeking a balance of interests. In technology and AI, safety communication mechanisms and guardrails can help manage intense competition. In traditional security, both countries are strengthening crisis management to prevent tensions in the Middle East or the Taiwan Strait from destabilizing their broader relationship. China-U.S. relations are thus moving toward a pattern in which competition continues but risks remain manageable.

Fourth, frequent leader-level diplomacy offers a potential model for major-power relations and helps counter the trend toward global bloc confrontation. Sustained engagement sends an important message: the Thucydides Trap is not inevitable, and the rise of a major power need not lead to conflict. Such engagement can ease pressure on smaller countries to choose sides, stabilize global markets and supply chains, and provide greater predictability in an uncertain world. It also offers a practical reference for how major powers can coexist in a changing international order. Looking ahead, global markets, U.S. allies, and regional security dynamics will continue to adjust to this evolving pattern of China-U.S. relations.

Following the China-U.S. presidential meeting in Washington in September 2026, constructive strategic stability became a frequently used concept in Chinese discussions of bilateral relationships. It describes a positive stability with cooperation as the mainstay, a sound stability with moderate competition, a constant stability with manageable differences, and an enduring stability with promises of peace.

Compared with a framework centered mainly on strategic competition, constructive strategic stability places more emphasis on boundaries. Sun Chenghao argues that China-U.S. competition should not spread without limit across every area of the relationship. He calls for clearer limits on the objectives, instruments, and scope of competition so that national security concerns do not absorb every bilateral issue and disputes in one field do not automatically spill into others. Fu Suixin makes a similar point. Competition is likely to continue for a long time, but neither side can avoid the costs of constant escalation. From this perspective, constructive strategic stability is less about reducing rivalry than about keeping it under control.

It is also different from détente. Major disagreements over technology, Taiwan, trade, and AI security remain unresolved, and strategic trust has not significantly recovered. Da Wei describes the current phase as one of adjustment, suggesting that both sides remain distrustful but have become more pragmatic about managing risks. Détente usually suggests a broader easing of tensions and an improvement in relations. Constructive strategic stability sets a narrower goal: maintaining a workable relationship even when serious disagreements remain.

The concept also extends beyond the Cold War meaning of strategic stability. Traditionally, strategic stability was mainly associated with military competition, nuclear deterrence, crisis management, and preventing catastrophic escalation. In current China-U.S. discussions, it now covers a wider range of issues, including trade, technology, artificial intelligence, supply chains, and people-to-people exchanges. Wang Yong and Jia Qingguo, for example, discuss AI safety dialogue, incident notification, and risk communication as possible tools for managing new forms of strategic risk. The word “constructive” adds another layer. Stability is not only about avoiding conflict. It also leaves room for practical cooperation in areas such as economic dialogue, AI governance, and social exchanges.

Seen together, these discussions suggest a relationship in which competition continues but is not supposed to become unlimited, disagreements remain but are kept manageable, trust stays weak but communication continues, and cooperation survives in selected areas. Whether this framework can last will depend on how far presidential-level understandings are translated into regular communication, crisis-management arrangements, clearer limits on policy behavior, and concrete cooperation.

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The September Washington summit between the Chinese and US heads of state served as a vital anchor in steering bilateral ties toward a “constructive strategic-stability relationship,” marking a distinct progression from high-level consensus toward institutionalized mechanisms. However, this shift does not signal the eradication of structural friction, but rather active stabilization through structured interaction.

At the strategic level, the Washington summit built directly upon May’s Beijing talks. As Wu Xinbo observed, the summit played a pivotal transitional role in sustaining strategic momentum and managing bilateral friction. The central anchor remains identifying the right path for two major powers to coexist. Ambassador Xie Feng stressed that mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, and win-win cooperation are imperative to prevent catastrophic conflict. Da Wei noted that bilateral ties have entered a protracted period of strategic adjustment, where regular leader-level engagement sets the guardrails. Zhao Minghao highlighted that the summit’s extraordinary protocol reflected both capitals’ urgency to preclude miscalculation.

Institutionally, this consensus materialized into actionable frameworks, encompassing defense, trade, and multilateral governance. Wang Dong argued that institutionalizing strategic-stability consensus via regular inter-agency channels prevents high-level commitments from eroding. Jia Qingguo underscored that accumulating mutual trust hinges on steady, incremental implementation. Crucially, Wang Yong identified bilateral AI safety and risk dialogues as an emerging institutional anchor for managing technological friction. Scholars at Shanghai Jiao Tong University similarly assessed that these platforms provide an indispensable resilience network.

Yet, the long-term viability of these arrangements faces persistent hurdles. Wu Xinbo cautioned that constructive strategic stability requires affirmative public-goods cooperation beyond mere crisis avoidance, a prospect hindered by Washington’s pan-securitization tendencies. Fu Suixin pointed out that both sides are seeking stability amidst intensifying rivalry. Xin Qiang noted that genuine stability requires Washington to accept China’s legitimate development rights, rather than weaponizing procedural guardrails as unilateral containment. Sun Chenghao added that competition must not veto cooperation.

In the end, turning promises from leaders into lasting rules is an ongoing, practical test. The Washington summit proved that working-level talks can act as a helpful shock absorber when tensions run high. However, holding meetings alone is not enough; both countries must show real restraint, drop zero-sum thinking, and respect each other’s core red lines. Only when both sides treat these mechanisms as a shared safety net—rather than a tool to pressure each other—can their agreements truly lead to long-term stability.

China views the agreement reached by the two governments to launch a governmental dialogue on artificial intelligence and establish a notification mechanism on relevant issues as an important development. From Beijing’s perspective, this represents that China and the United States have demonstrated a shared willingness to engage at the governmental level on frontier AI governance. Beyond the bilateral relationship, such a mechanism carries broader significance for global AI governance and international technology security by creating an institutional channel for communication between the world’s two leading AI powers.

One issue that has attracted external attention concerns terminology. Following the leaders‘ meeting, the U.S. side described the upcoming dialogue as one on “super intelligence,” whereas China’s official readout continued to refer to “artificial intelligence.” From the Chinese perspective, the Trump administration’s adoption of the term “super intelligence” primarily serves its domestic political agenda and policy narrative. China therefore has little incentive to replicate this terminology in its own diplomatic statements. At the same time, within the context of bilateral governmental dialogue, “super intelligence” and “artificial intelligence” largely refer to the same scope of frontier technologies and governance challenges. The difference in wording is therefore not viewed as a substantive obstacle. China’s primary concern is whether both sides can successfully implement the dialogue mechanism and sustain practical cooperation.

China’s expectations for the governmental dialogue can be summarized in four areas.

First, China expects the mechanism to help manage frontier AI risks and prevent strategic competition from generating dangerous spillover effects. These risks include excessively accelerated frontier model development driven by technological rivalry, the military application of AI that could intensify intelligent arms competition or increase crisis instability, and competition over AI technology diffusion that creates opportunities for malicious use by third-party actors. A governmental dialogue offers a platform for both sides to align their understanding of emerging risks, communicate threat perceptions, and establish common awareness of the most urgent governance priorities. The objective is to prevent strategic competition from evolving into uncontrolled escalation while reducing the likelihood that AI-related risks undermine international security.

Second, China regards AI dialogue as a stabilizer for the broader China–U.S. relationship. Technology competition has become one of the central arenas of bilateral strategic competition, and many of the sharp fluctuations in recent China–U.S. relations have been closely connected to technology issues, including U.S. export controls, restrictions on advanced semiconductors, and recent disputes over model distillation and other AI-related technologies. Establishing a governmental communication mechanism in the AI domain can provide an institutional channel to address emerging technological frictions before they spill over into broader bilateral tensions. More importantly, meaningful progress in AI governance would represent a form of positive cooperation that goes beyond crisis management and demonstrates that the two countries remain capable of jointly providing global public goods.

Third, Beijing hopes the dialogue can introduce a broader Global South perspective into frontier AI governance. Current international AI safety governance remains dominated by American and European technological communities and political elites. Their technological leadership and institutional influence largely shape existing frontier AI safety standards and governance principles. Although Chinese frontier AI models have become increasingly competitive, China has not yet been fully integrated into the core agenda-setting process of frontier AI governance. A bilateral dialogue provides an opportunity to incorporate more diverse governance perspectives before global standards become further institutionalized.

Fourth, China sees bilateral dialogue as complementary to multilateral governance under the United Nations. China has consistently supported conducting global AI governance within the UN framework. At the same time, meaningful consensus between China and the United States would significantly narrow differences among the world’s leading AI powers and facilitate broader multilateral cooperation. Recent developments—including China’s announcement of the World AI Cooperation Organization (WAICO) and reports that the United States seeks to encourage partners in its own AI security initiatives to align strategically—have generated concerns about bloc formation in global AI governance. Effective China–U.S. coordination would reduce the risk of competing governance camps and create a more favorable environment for international AI governance.

China nevertheless maintains pragmatic expectations regarding the dialogue. First, technological competition will continue. The United States remains committed to preserving its technological advantages, and this fundamental strategic orientation is unlikely to change. Second, U.S. technology restrictions, particularly export controls, may be adjusted according to circumstances but will not disappear. The key challenge is to separate competitive issues from areas where cooperation on AI governance remains possible, preventing one from undermining the other. Third, expectations regarding the dialogue should remain realistic. The most desirable outcome is the establishment of a stable governmental communication mechanism. A more modest outcome would involve initial progress in terminology coordination, conceptual exchanges, and risk alignment that lays the foundation for future cooperation. Even if substantive implementation is delayed, maintaining communication would still carry value. China is actively pursuing the most ambitious outcome while preparing for more limited progress. The immediate priority is to address the most pressing AI risks and reduce strategic pressures generated by the accelerating global technology competition.

From China’s perspective, the dialogue could begin with exchanges on terminology, conceptual frameworks, and shared understandings of frontier AI risks. Over time, Track 2 dialogues involving experts and research institutions could support Track 1 governmental negotiations by refining technical proposals and exploring areas of consensus. Governmental dialogue would provide strategic direction, while Track 2 mechanisms develop detailed policy options that can eventually be translated into jointly announced outcomes. Such interaction would create a constructive cycle between official diplomacy and expert engagement, increasing the prospects for sustained bilateral AI governance cooperation.

Short-term tariff restraint can improve firms’ policy expectations, particularly for immediate trading decisions. Its contribution to long-term investment depends on whether continued negotiations produce reliable implementation and clearer boundaries for future restrictions. A pause creates planning space and sustained consultation must make that space credible beyond the next deadline.

The suspension of additional tariffs would extend until 10 January 2027, alongside reciprocal tariff-reduction arrangements covering US$30 billion in goods on each side. The White House described the latter as consensus on recommendations for favourable treatment of non-sensitive goods. Preventing further escalation and reducing existing costs are distinct achievements, and neither guarantees broader continuity in market access.

For businesses, known trade costs differ from uncertainty about future policy. A predictable tariff can be incorporated into prices and contracts. Uncertainty over access to customers or essential inputs complicates investment appraisal. The pause can facilitate covered shipments before its expiry, but factories and specialised supplier relationships require commitments extending over years. Because much of their initial expenditure is difficult to recover, firms may rationally postpone investment while resuming orders. Stronger trade flows would therefore provide insufficient evidence that long-term expectations have improved.

Continued restraint nevertheless has an economic basis. Cooperation can rest on shared interests and mutual constraints despite limited strategic trust. The costs each country can impose through critical supply chains. Such constraints may discourage uncontrolled escalation, but offer less assurance to individual industries. The adjustment anticipates selective separation alongside continued commercial ties, making sector-specific policy clarity essential.

Artificial intelligence illustrates this distinction. There are opportunities to separate sensitive activities from legitimate cooperation, while warning that expanding security restrictions undermines dialogue. For firms, discussions of shared AI risks do not establish future access to chips, research partnerships or investment opportunities. Confidence requires clearer definitions of restricted activities and more predictable procedures for revising them.

The trade and investment boards could help address these uncertainties. Their commercial value depends on regular meetings, identifiable responsibilities and practical dispute resolution. Leader-level diplomacy allows cooperation to continue despite disagreements; While implementation and trust accumulated through successful cooperation. Together, these assessments suggest how political engagement might strengthen expectations: successive rounds must demonstrate that commitments survive implementation problems and political friction.

Published product coverage, effective dates and review schedules would help firms evaluate transactions. Advance notice and transition periods, where feasible, could reduce disruption from policy changes. These remain potential improvements rather than established summit outcomes. Progress should be assessed through usable regulatory guidance, functioning consultation during disagreements, and firms’ actual willingness to commit capital. Business surveys and investment data would help distinguish improved sentiment from sustained confidence.

The truce can support near-term commerce and begin improving longer-term expectations. Its lasting value depends on an observable record of delivery and clearer limits on policy change. Firms need sufficient grounds to assess how continuing disagreements will affect operations throughout an investment’s lifetime.

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Welcome to the special edition of China Scholar Insights!

When people discuss the global AI race, the conversation usually revolves around chips, computing power, frontier models, and investment. These are all important indicators of technological strength. But there is another question that receives much less attention: What happens after powerful AI systems are built?

A country may develop advanced models, but their broader economic and social impact still depends on whether businesses, workers, teachers, and ordinary users can actually understand and use them effectively. This raises an interesting question: Could AI literacy become another important dimension of national AI competitiveness?

I found this question worth thinking about. Is AI competition ultimately determined by who builds the most powerful systems, or will it also depend on which societies are better able to spread AI capabilities across the economy and everyday life? China’s recent push to expand AI education and public AI literacy offers an interesting case through which to examine this question. These developments prompted and me to take a closer look at China’s emerging effort to build AI literacy at scale and write this article.

Questions, comments, or criticisms are welcome at sch0625@gmail.com

When observers discuss the global race in artificial intelligence, the same indicators tend to dominate the conversation: access to advanced chips, computing power, the performance of frontier models, investment, and the size of a country’s pool of AI researchers.

These measures matter. They tell us a great deal about which countries are capable of pushing the technological frontier forward. But they tell us much less about what happens after an advanced model is built.

Can teachers use AI effectively in classrooms? Can workers adapt as AI reshapes their jobs? Can small businesses and public institutions make productive use of the technology without dedicated technical teams? And can ordinary users recognize its limitations rather than simply trust whatever an AI system produces?

China has long included public AI education in its national strategy. Recent policies are making that ambition more concrete by linking education and training more closely to the widespread use of AI.

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Why AI Literacy Matters

The economic impact of AI ultimately depends not only on innovation, but also on adoption. A highly capable model has limited wider value if its use remains concentrated among technology companies and specialists. Its effects become much larger when teachers, engineers, researchers, manufacturers, civil servants and small businesses can incorporate it into their work.

This points to two dimensions of national AI capacity. The first is frontier capability: the ability to develop increasingly powerful AI systems. The second is diffusion capacity: the ability to spread those systems through the economy and society and enable people to use them effectively.

Frontier capability can be tracked through chip access, computing resources and model benchmarks. Diffusion requires a different set of questions: who can access these systems, which tasks they can use them for, and whether their use improves outcomes. Education and workforce skills help connect technical capability to practical value.

For China, diffusion has become an explicit policy priority. The State Council’s 2025 “AI+” initiative sets out measures to expand AI use in science, industry, consumption, public services and governance. It also calls for improving AI literacy and skills among workers, expanding training and assessing employment risks. Education and skills are therefore part of the policy’s approach to adoption.

AI literacy combines a basic understanding of how AI works with the ability to use it, evaluate its outputs and make responsible decisions about its use. For an ordinary user, that might mean checking a generated claim, protecting sensitive information or recognizing when a task requires human expertise. These capabilities form part of the human infrastructure needed for widespread AI adoption.

How China Is Building AI Literacy at Scale

China’s approach has become much more systematic over the past year.

In April 2026, the Ministry of Education and four other government departments issued an “AI + Education” Action Plan. It sets a target for 2030: an AI education system spanning all stages of formal education and broader public learning, supported by a sustained mechanism for developing AI literacy across society.

The intended audience extends well beyond future AI scientists and software engineers. At the school level, the plan calls for AI education to be integrated more systematically into curricula. At universities, the plan calls for AI to become part of the foundational curriculum for students across disciplines, with teaching materials adapted to different fields of study. Vocational education is expected to connect AI training more closely with changing workplace needs, while universities and open-learning institutions are encouraged to provide AI literacy and skills courses for wider groups of learners. It also calls for AI knowledge to be incorporated into teacher qualification examinations and certification.

The effort already has substantial reach. By August 2026, China’s national smart-education platform had gathered more than 1,000 AI courses spanning basic, vocational and higher education as well as lifelong learning. Ministry-organized training had reached 250,000 school leaders and local education bureau heads, while AI-literacy training had covered more than 310,000 primary and secondary school teachers in central and western China.

The agenda extends beyond formal education. In May 2026, In May 2026, four government bodies made public AI literacy one of six priorities in their annual digital-literacy work programme. The same month, an “AI Literacy Reference Framework” was released at the China Internet Civilization Conference, signaling an effort to think about AI competence at the level of society rather than schools alone.

China is part of a wider international shift. In April 2025, the United States issued an executive order promoting AI education, teacher training and apprenticeships, linking them to an “AI-ready workforce.” The July 2025 U.S. AI Action Plan also called for AI skills to be integrated into career and technical education, workforce training and other federally supported programmes.

In June 2026, the OECD and European Commission published an AI-literacy framework for primary and secondary education. It emphasizes understanding AI systems, evaluating their outputs and using them ethically and creatively. Across these initiatives, AI literacy is increasingly treated as a capability needed beyond the technology sector.

What deserves attention in China’s case is the attempt to connect a nationwide education agenda with industrial adoption, adult training and public digital literacy. AI literacy is being placed within a broader effort to expand AI use across the economy. Whether these policy connections translate into better learning and more effective workplace use remains an open question.

The push also reaches people already in the workforce. In August 2026, Guangdong’s human resources and social security department launched a province-wide AI training initiative. Running through January 2027, it targets at least 1,000 AI courses, 1,000 training activities and one million training participations. It offers a practical example of how the literacy agenda is extending beyond schools and universities.

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The Promise and the Limits

Access to capable models does not automatically translate into effective use. Workers still need to understand where AI can improve existing tasks, how to evaluate its outputs and when human judgment remains necessary. The same applies to teachers, public institutions and smaller businesses that may lack dedicated technical teams. Broader AI literacy could therefore make it easier for AI to move beyond technology companies and specialists into everyday economic and social activity.

China’s national platforms, universities and vocational schools provide channels for delivering AI education at scale. Their practical value will depend on how well common resources are adapted to different learners and occupations. A factory technician, a teacher and a small-business owner need different forms of training. Connecting these needs to the wider “AI+” agenda will require continued cooperation between education providers and employers.

Large-scale adoption is only a starting point. Knowing how to write a prompt does not establish whether a user can evaluate the answer. The OECD’s Digital Education Outlook 2026 draws a related distinction: generative AI can improve students’ performance on a task without producing lasting learning gains. Educational benefits depend on how the technology is designed and used, including whether it supports students’ own reasoning.

As AI becomes easier to use, some of the most valuable skills may be precisely those that cannot simply be delegated to it: critical thinking, independent judgment, the ability to identify unreliable information and knowing when an automated system should not be trusted.

Recent Chinese guidance also addresses these concerns. An AI education ethics framework, released at the World Digital Education Conference in May 2026, emphasizes human responsibility and distinguishes between prohibited, restricted and encouraged uses. It provides guidance for educational practice; its significance will depend on how institutions translate those principles into everyday decisions.

Implementation may pose another challenge. Schools and communities do not have equal access to teachers, infrastructure and digital resources. Universities and large organizations may adapt faster than smaller institutions, rural schools or older workers. A strategy intended to narrow the AI skills gap could create new inequalities if the quality of access and training varies widely.

There is also a deeper question about what an “AI-literate” person should actually be able to do. If AI can write, translate, summarize, calculate and increasingly perform more complex cognitive tasks, education systems will have to decide which capabilities people should continue to develop independently. The goal cannot simply be to produce a society in which everyone uses AI.

China’s bet will be tested by what people can do after the training: whether teachers can improve learning, workers can adapt to changing tasks, and users can identify errors and make informed decisions. Course numbers and participation figures show reach. The stronger evidence will be improvements in performance, adaptability and independent judgment that endure as AI tools change.

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: Research Associate at ChinAffairsplus.

: Founder and Editor-in-Chief at ChinAffairsplus; Associate Professor at Tsinghua University.

Welcome to the 89th edition of our weekly newsletter! I’m , a fellow with the Center for International Security and Strategy (CISS) at Tsinghua University, Council Member of The Chinese Association of American Studies and a visiting scholar at the Paul Tsai China Center of Yale Law School (fall 2024).

ChinAffairsplus is a newsletter that shares articles by Chinese academics on topics such as China’s foreign policy, China-U.S. relations, China-Europe relations, and more. This newsletter was co-founded by my research assistant, , and me.

Through carefully selected Chinese academic articles, we aim to provide you with key insights into the issues that China’s academic and strategic communities are focused on. We will highlight why each article matters and the most important takeaways. Questions and feedback can be addressed to sch0625@gmail.com

Today, we have selected an article written by Xueyu and me, which focuses on the AI-Nuclear Nexus.

Summary

At present, strategic anxieties in the “Third Nuclear Age” and the logic of pursuing deterrence through technological integration are driving some nuclear-armed states to explore incorporating AI into nuclear weapons systems. AI contributes to nuclear deterrence through three major pathways: strengthening nuclear strike capabilities, improving nuclear situational awareness, and empowering nuclear command, control, and communications systems (NC3).

The AI-nuclear nexus may alter the strategic balance, undermine strategic stability, and weaken psychological and normative constraints such as the nuclear taboo. It may also challenge the nuclear non-proliferation regime through “intelligentized” arms expansion. Looking ahead, stronger bilateral and multilateral dialogue and improved crisis-management mechanisms are needed to help cool down an emerging intelligentized arms race.

Why It Matters

The integration of AI and nuclear weapons has drawn significant attention from policymakers, military practitioners, and academics worldwide, as it may directly undermine strategic stability, reshape crisis decision-making processes, fuel nuclear arms races, and increase the risk of nuclear war.

Although existing scholarship has revealed the far-reaching strategic implications of the militarization of AI and the intelligentization of nuclear deterrence systems, further exploration of the underlying motivations is required, specific integration pathways, and their mechanisms of impact. This paper examines the process and implications of integrating AI into nuclear deterrence systems, explores the motivations behind this integration and its strategic consequences, and proposes preliminary approaches to addressing these challenges through global governance and bilateral and multilateral cooperation. In doing so, it seeks to fill gaps in the existing literature and provide meaningful implications for policymaking.

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Key Points

1. Motivations for the Integration of Artificial Intelligence and Nuclear Weapons

(1) Securing First-Mover Advantages and Alleviating Strategic Anxiety

As geopolitical and technological competition among major powers intensifies, the international community increasingly recognizes AI’s military application as a key factor shaping future warfare. The pursuit of first-mover advantages, intertwined with strategic anxiety, has prompted some states to explore AI to strengthen nuclear strike capabilities, maintain strategic advantages, and safeguard national security.

On the one hand, nuclear powers such as the United States and Russia are exploring AI applications to enhance nuclear deterrence and consolidate strategic advantages. On the other hand, states such as the United States remain highly vigilant about other countries’ technological development, viewing their growing military capabilities as a potential threat and increasing defense investment accordingly.

(2) Reshaping the Strategic Balance through AI as a Technological Lever

For states with smaller nuclear arsenals, AI may function as a ‘technological lever,’ shifting deterrence from numerical superiority toward precision and helping offset disadvantages in arsenal size. The integration of AI and nuclear weapons may compensate for the limited size of some states’ nuclear arsenals and enhance nuclear deterrence without expanding their stockpiles. Meanwhile, advances in conventional weapons, including unmanned combat platforms and precision-strike capabilities, may enable non-nuclear states to counter nuclear-armed states, potentially prompting the latter to strengthen their nuclear forces. For major nuclear powers such as the United States and Russia, AI-nuclear integration may also enable an overall enhancement of nuclear strike capabilities. AI-enhanced ISR may also create ‘one-way transparency,’ allowing technologically superior states to better track adversary nuclear deployments and missile movements, potentially weakening their second-strike capability.

(3) Integration as Deterrence

Even without translating into actual destructive capabilities, the trend toward AI-nuclear integration itself can have a deterrent effect. First, even if such capabilities are not fully realized, the belief that a state possesses them may be sufficient to generate deterrence. Second, a key feature of AI-enabled military development is its potential to produce “discontinuous improvements” in capabilities, with weapon performance undergoing qualitative rather than gradual changes at certain stages. Thus, even limited experimental integration may cause states on the “opposite side” of technological leaders to worry that the survivability of their nuclear weapons is under threat.

2. Pathways to AI-Nuclear Integration

(1) AI Empowers Nuclear Weapons Deployment and Enhances Strike Effectiveness

First is “effective deployment,” which involves applying AI to optimize the performance of nuclear weapons delivery platforms, enhance deployment flexibility, and balance nuclear strike capabilities with nuclear survivability. Second is “precision guidance,” which combines reinforcement learning with guidance technologies to enhance missiles’ adaptability in complex electromagnetic and weather environments and improve strike effectiveness. Finally, “coordinated penetration,” which uses AI to enhance missiles’ ability to penetrate adversary air defense and missile defense systems, reach target areas, and complete strike missions.

(2) AI-Enabled Nuclear Threat Warning and Situational Awareness Systems

AI-enabled unmanned autonomous reconnaissance systems are becoming an important complement to existing nuclear situational awareness capabilities. As technology advances, unmanned surface vehicles (USVs), unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs), autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) can operate for extended periods in challenging environments, including polar regions, the open ocean, and the deep sea, improving the efficiency of military operations. At the same time, AI can process massive amounts of multi-source data to assist in identifying, classifying, and continuously tracking potential nuclear force targets, thereby enhancing nuclear situational awareness.

(3) AI-Enabled Nuclear Command, Control, and Communications Systems (NC3)

AI can provide decision support. In high-pressure environments where there is little room for maneuver, the introduction of AI can serve two purposes: expanding the range of available decision options and improving the quality of decision-making. Meanwhile, AI can help enhance the security and resilience of nuclear command, control, and communications (NC3). In infrastructure maintenance, AI can draw on machine learning, data mining, and predictive analytics to continuously monitor relevant weapons systems, identify equipment degradation, abnormal conditions, and potential vulnerabilities, and support early warning of failures, maintenance scheduling, and vulnerability remediation.

3. The Impact of AI-Nuclear Integration on Strategic Stability

(1) The Multifaceted Impact of AI-Nuclear Integration on Strategic Stability

Firstly, the integration of AI and nuclear weapons will alter the static nuclear balance of power among states. Static capabilities primarily refer to the number of nuclear weapons a state possesses and its credible delivery capabilities, while “static force stability” refers to a state of nuclear equilibrium in which both sides possess reliable nuclear retaliatory capabilities. The introduction of AI is changing the traditional paradigm in which the number of nuclear weapons determines whether a state reaches the threshold of nuclear deterrence.

Secondly, the integration of AI and nuclear weapons will undermine crisis stability among nuclear-armed states, compress decision-making time, and increase the risk of war arising from misunderstanding and miscalculation. First, AI-assisted decision-making may increase the likelihood of states taking risks in nuclear crisis scenarios. Second, AI may amplify the risk of miscalculation in crisis decision-making environments. Third, AI-assisted decision-making systems may accelerate the pace of nuclear war, causing crises to escalate more rapidly into nuclear conflict.

Thirdly, the integration of AI and nuclear weapons will undermine arms race stability among nuclear powers. Major powers will face greater uncertainty in assessing each other’s technological capabilities, military capabilities, and strategic intentions, increasing the risk of miscalculation and intensifying the security dilemma. States may also adopt a “worst-case assumption,” assuming that an adversary’s technological capabilities are superior or rapidly catching up, thereby increasing investment and driving a spiral of arms race escalation.

Finally, the integration of AI and nuclear weapons may weaken the ethical constraints in traditional nuclear strategic competition. On the one hand, AI systems may struggle to grasp the non-quantifiable political and psychological elements of brinkmanship and resolve signaling, making it difficult to perceive the fear, hesitation, and willingness to compromise of opposing decision-makers under high-pressure conditions or to interpret diplomatic signals in a timely manner. On the other hand, AI’s quantitative assessment of the risks and benefits of nuclear strikes, combined with the ambiguity of responsibility arising from AI-assisted decision-making, may weaken the constraining force of the “nuclear taboo.”

(2) Emerging Risks of AI-Nuclear Nexus: Technical Deficiencies, Loss of Control, and Ethical Challenges

First, unlike traditional nuclear forces built around missile numbers and delivery capabilities, AI-enabled nuclear deterrence systems rely heavily on algorithms, data, and communication links. If critical nodes are attacked or poisoned, the system may generate misidentification, false warnings, or anomalous decision recommendations, escalating risks during crises. Second, “Human-in-the-Loop” (HITL), which retains human intervention, may exist only formally under extreme high-pressure conditions, making effective human intervention difficult in practice. Finally, AI systems’ self-learning and adaptive capabilities may give rise to “value drift” and risks of goal misalignment.

4. Prospects for International Governance amid the Intelligentization of Nuclear Weapons

(1) Deficiencies and Challenges in the Existing Governance Framework

First, some technologically advanced states continue to deepen the integration of AI and nuclear deterrence systems to maintain security advantages and deter “adversaries,” intensifying the security dilemma among states. At the multilateral and bilateral levels, the international community has proposed several initiatives and minimum consensuses on AI and nuclear risks, but these remain limited in scope, weak in binding force, and supported by inadequate verification mechanisms, making it difficult to effectively constrain the process of “intelligentized arms expansion”. Moreover, AI and other intelligent technologies are dual-use in nature. Their potential to generate discontinuous improvements in nuclear strike capabilities also challenges traditional nuclear disarmament verification frameworks centered on warhead numbers and delivery-system scales.

(2) Rebuilding Nuclear Strategic Stability in the Era of “Intelligentized” Arms Competition

Rebuilding strategic stability in the “intelligentized arms era” should begin with aligning risk perceptions, focus on crisis stability and arms race stability, and aim to prevent AI military applications from undermining nuclear deterrence stability and intensifying the security dilemma. This requires a gradual governance pathway from risk research to policy communication, from expert consensus to behavioral norms, and from bilateral exploration to multilateral adoption.

First, the international community should further support the United Nations and relevant disarmament bodies in conducting systematic research on AI-nuclear integration, while promoting cross-national and interdisciplinary arms-control communities to deepen shared understanding of related risks. Second, the risks of AI-nuclear integration should be incorporated into bilateral dialogues among nuclear powers, using official, semi-official, and Track II mechanisms to strengthen communication, build mutual trust, and reduce miscalculation. Third, building on bilateral dialogue, relevant consensus should gradually be extended to the multilateral level. For example, the China-US principle of “ensuring that nuclear weapons remain under effective human control at all times” could gradually become a basic principle accepted by the P5 nuclear-weapon states.

Conclusion

As strategic competition among major powers intensifies and the military potential of emerging disruptive technologies becomes increasingly apparent, the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) with nuclear weapons has become a significant trend in the development of nuclear forces that can no longer be overlooked. In today’s complex and volatile international security environment, persistent strategic mistrust and acute security dilemmas among some major powers, compounded by accelerated efforts by the United States and other countries to advance military applications of AI, make the systemic risks arising from AI–nuclear integration impossible to ignore. If decisions on the use of nuclear weapons were ultimately left to algorithms, humanity would face grave risks.

In the age of AI, China should further engage in and help lead efforts to strengthen global strategic stability, contributing Chinese wisdom and proposals to address the risks of AI–nuclear Nexus. On the one hand, China should actively participate in the governance of military AI safety and security, promote the development of broadly representative and universally applicable international norms, and advocate fundamental principles. On the other hand, it should strengthen strategic communication and dialogue on governance with major nuclear powers and leading AI powers, exploring practical cooperation on crisis management, the verification of early-warning information, and the boundaries between human and machine decision-making. Only by encouraging countries to move from mutual deterrence toward joint risk governance can we prevent AI from becoming a catalyst for nuclear war and lay a firmer foundation for lasting peace in the age of AI.

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About the Author

Sun Chenghao (孙成昊): Professor Sun is a Senior Fellow and the head of the U.S.-Europe program at the Center for International Security and Strategy (CISS), Tsinghua University. He is a member of Munich Young Leaders with the Munich Security Conference, a visiting scholar at Yale Law School (2024), a visiting fellow at the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue (2025), and a fellow at the Arms Control Negotiation Academy (2025-2026). His research interests include U.S. domestic and foreign policy, China-U.S. relations, transatlantic relations, AI, and International security, etc.

Zhang Xueyu (张学玉): Zhang Xueyu is a Research Assistant at the Institute for Global Cooperation and Understanding, Peking University.

About the publication

The Chinese version of this article was published in the Journal of Strategy and Decision-Making (《战略决策研究》). This journal is a CSSCI Extended Edition source journal published by Guangdong University of Foreign Studies. Focusing on international affairs, the journal emphasizes international strategic studies and addresses major contemporary issues at the global, regional, and country levels. It values the academic rigor, contemporary relevance, and innovativeness of research and is committed to advancing theoretical and policy research on international strategy.

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Welcome to the 88th edition of our weekly newsletter! I’m , a fellow with the Center for International Security and Strategy (CISS) at Tsinghua University, Council Member of The Chinese Association of American Studies and a visiting scholar at the Paul Tsai China Center of Yale Law School (fall 2024).

ChinAffairsplus is a newsletter that shares articles by Chinese academics on topics such as China’s foreign policy, China-U.S. relations, China-Europe relations, and more. This newsletter was co-founded by my research assistant, ZHANG Xueyu, and me.

Through carefully selected Chinese academic articles, we aim to provide you with key insights into the issues that China’s academic and strategic communities are focused on. We will highlight why each article matters and the most important takeaways. Questions and feedback can be addressed to sch0625@gmail.com

Today, we have selected an article written by Niu Xinchun, who analyzes the Path and Influence of Power Pattern Transformation in the Middle East.

Summary

Before the conflict in Gaza, the Romance of the Three Kingdoms between Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Iran was staged in the Middle East, with Iran as the center of contradiction and the relationship between Iran and Israel as the main contradiction. There are significant differences in the nature and sources of power among countries, which are complex and fragile and abide by the corresponding rules of the game.After the conflict in Gaza, the balance of power was destroyed, the rules of the game no longer existed, and the red line even became the starting line. A new power pattern among Israel, Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, and Iran is taking shape, and the advantages and disadvantages of the powers of all countries are more prominent. The new balance of power and new rules of the game have not yet been formed, and the policy choices of the United States, Israel, and Iran will become the most critical uncertainties.

Why it matters

The U.S.-Israeli joint strike on Iran in February 2026, along with the conflict’s spread across multiple countries, has in effect validated the author’s central judgment. The reason this article was selected lies in its analytical framework, centered on the nature of power and the transformation of the regional power configuration, which offers a forward-looking assessment of the Middle East after the Gaza conflict. It reflects a Chinese scholar’s calm and structured reading of regional turmoil: without presupposing an ideological stance, it focuses on each actor’s strengths and weaknesses and on the fragility of the rules of the game, providing a clear analysis for understanding both the current conflict and the transitional period ahead. The article helps readers understand the path and implications of the shift in Middle Eastern power relations: the old balance has broken down, a new order has not yet emerged, and great-power rivalry and regional instability will likely continue for a long time.

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Key Points

1. The Pre-Gaza Conflict Pattern: The Strengths and Weaknesses of the Four Power Centers

• The Gaza Conflict as a Turning Point in the Power Pattern

After the Gaza conflict broke out in October 2023, the power pattern in the Middle East underwent a rapid and substantial shift. The conflict destroyed the complex and fragile balance of power previously anchored by four major centers: Iran, Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, and Israel. In this context, analyzing the nature of power, the characteristics of the pattern, the balancing mechanisms, and the direction of power shifts has become essential to understanding the region's future trajectory.

• Israel: Military Power Built on Technology and External Support, Constrained by the Palestinian Issue

Israel has become an independent power center through advanced technology, military strength, and support from the United States and Europe. High technology is the backbone of its economy and military power, supporting its GDP, exports, air superiority, and air defense. Long-term U.S. aid and arms supplies have further strengthened both its hard and soft power. Yet the unresolved Palestinian issue has kept Israel from gaining stable regional support and remains its biggest long-term security weakness.

• Iran: Deterrence Built on Proxies, Missiles, and Nuclear Threshold Capability, Undermined by Economic Fragility

Iran’s power rests on three pillars: proxies, missiles, and nuclear deterrence. Through the “Axis of Resistance,” it supports proxy groups to expand its influence at low cost while avoiding direct conflict with regional powers. Roughly 3,000 missiles and its nuclear threshold capability form its core strategic deterrent.

• Turkey: Expanding Limited Regional Influence Through Drones and Military Intervention

Turkey expands its regional influence through military intervention, defense industry, and Islamist ideology. Its drones are affordable, effective, and battle-tested, driving arms sales and supporting its role in regional conflicts. But its influence still depends mainly on low-cost drones and lags behind the high-end systems of the United States and Israel. Political Islam once helped Turkey’s rise, but it now deepens tensions with many Middle Eastern states.

• Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States: Oil Wealth and Neutral Diplomacy, with Heavy Reliance on U.S. Security

Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states have risen as the old Arab powers declined, using oil wealth and neutral diplomacy to become new Arab spokesmen. Saudi Arabia uses its spare oil capacity to influence prices and turns wealth into aid and investment. It has also stayed neutral and acted as a mediator on issues such as Ukraine, Gaza, and the Red Sea, steadily boosting its soft power. But its weakness is limited self-defense: it still relies heavily on U.S. security guarantees and faces the risk of being either abandoned or dragged into war.

2. The Pre-Gaza Conflict Balance of Power: Fragile Rules of the Game and Main Contradictions

• Turkey’s Marginalization and Saudi Arabia’s Balancing Strategy

After 2014, Turkey withdrew from regional competition, and Iran became Saudi Arabia’s biggest threat. Following the 2020 détente wave, Saudi Arabia shifted away from its military disadvantage and toward diplomacy, seeking to improve ties with Israel and Iran and break free from the constraints of the triangle rivalry.

• The fragile deterrence balance between Israel and Iran

Israel and Iran have become the core conflict in the Middle East: Israel relies on military superiority, while Iran counters with proxies, missiles, and nuclear deterrence. The two sides have long fought through proxy wars without full escalation, while mutual missile and nuclear deterrence has kept either from paying the high cost of all-out war. Israel can prevent Iran from crossing the nuclear threshold, but cannot stop it from edging closer; if Iran ever does cross that line, Israel is certain to strike, leaving both sides in a fragile balance.

3. Post-Gaza Conflict Evolution: Old Balance Destroyed, New Pattern Emerging

• The Abraham Accords and the Hamas Attack: The Trigger for the Collapse of the Balance of Power

The cracks in the balance began with the 2020 Abraham Accords, when four Arab states normalized relations with Israel, breaking the old Israeli-Palestinian balance of power. Historically, Arab states backed Palestine through the “Three No’s” and the Beirut Declaration, but after the Abraham Accords, six Arab states had recognized Israel, and Saudi–Israeli normalization was nearly within reach. One of Hamas’s direct aims in its attack was to block Saudi–Israeli normalization and derail that process, becoming the first to change the rules of the game.

• Iran’s Three Pillars Fail, and Israel Establishes Military Deterrence

The Gaza conflict has dealt a severe blow to Iran’s “Axis of Resistance,” sharply weakening its regional position. Regime change in Syria deprived Iran of a key ally, while Hezbollah suffered devastating losses, eroding the axis’s combat power, cohesion, and trust. At the same time, Iran’s deterrence against Israel has largely failed: its proxies have stayed silent, most missile strikes were intercepted, and nuclear capability did not stop Israeli attacks. In the end, Israel used the war to establish military deterrence over the “Axis of Resistance.”

• Turkey Emerges as the Second Biggest Beneficiary, While Gulf States’ Financial and Diplomatic Influence Rises

After the power imbalance, Turkey emerged as the second biggest beneficiary, with its influence peaking and Syria becoming a foothold, though it still needs to cooperate with the United States and Gulf states. The Gulf states, meanwhile, have risen faster thanks to their financial and diplomatic power, using postwar reconstruction to reshape the regional order and further strengthen Saudi Arabia’s leadership role. Gulf capital continues to flow into Syria and Gaza, making the Gulf states indispensable partners for the U.S., Israel, and Turkey alike.

• Bloc Realignment in the New Order: U.S.–Israel Alliance, Loose Cooperation, and Iran’s Isolation

Israel established military superiority over the “Axis of Resistance” during the war and deepened ties with Gulf states through technology cooperation. Turkey, using Syria as a foothold, managed its relations with the United States, Israel, and the Gulf states, becoming for the first time a Middle Eastern power with broad regional influence. As a result, the Middle East has taken shape as a three-part structure: a U.S.–Israel alliance, loose U.S.–Gulf–Turkey cooperation, and Iran standing alone, while the United States acts as a wavering middleman.

4. Strategic Reconfiguration: Behavioral Logic Under the New Rules

• Israel: From “Containment” to “Large-Scale Retaliation”

Israel’s strategy has shifted from containment to large-scale retaliation, and from preserving the status quo to actively changing it, showing a clear military expansionist tilt. Its ongoing strikes on Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and Syria may now be becoming the new normal.

• Turkey: A Key Supporting Role

Turkey plays a key supporting role in the new Middle East order: it preserves its influence without overreaching. It accepts the framework led by the United States and the Gulf states, seizing the strategic vacuum left by Iran and guarding against Israel’s excessive expansion. Turkey backs the Gulf states’ policy of regional stability. Meanwhile, under U.S. mediation, Turkey and Israel maintain a delicate balance, and Turkey–Iran ties remain a manageable strategic rivalry.

• Saudi Arabia: Avoiding Risk by Distancing Itself from Israel

After the Gaza conflict, Saudi Arabia’s security vulnerability became more apparent, and its threat perception shifted from Iran to Israel. Under domestic public pressure, Saudi Arabia raised the price of normalization with Israel and instead chose to distance itself from Israel, keep the United States close, and engage Iran.

• Iran: Extreme Restraint and Passive Retreat in a Strategic Vacuum

Iran has responded to its setbacks with extreme restraint, focusing first on rebuilding its air defenses, because only by defending its homeland can it restore its proxy network and advance its nuclear program. Meanwhile, the United States, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey are all moving to fill the strategic vacuum left by Iran, but Iran has not yet mounted a forceful counteroffensive. In the end, no side has achieved a total victory or suffered a total defeat, and a new round of rivalry will unfold under a new balance of power.

5. Future Outlook: Critical Uncertainties Shaping the New Rules of the Game

• Israel: Military Dominance Secured, Policy Direction at a Three-Way Crossroads

With the initiative in its hands, Israel has three possible paths: first, continue to expand the war and escalate on the Gaza, Lebanon, or Iran fronts; second, preserve a state of “neither war nor peace” while maintaining pressure through small-scale military actions; third, convert military superiority into political gains by using Trump’s “20-point plan” to advance a two-state solution, broaden the Abraham Accords, and pursue “land for peace” in order to break out of isolation.

• Iran’s Three Paths: Concessionary Negotiation, Rebuilding Deterrence, or Waiting for the Right Moment

Iran is in a weak position and has only a few policy options: first, negotiate with the United States and make concessions, but the terms are too harsh and hard to accept domestically; second, rebuild the Axis of Resistance and its missile and nuclear deterrence, but the practical basis has been weakened, and this could easily provoke Israeli strikes; third, wait for opponents to make mistakes and use a crisis to expand its influence again. Overall, Iran is weak but still influential.

• The United States: Deeply Involved, Politically Unstable, and the Biggest Uncertainty

The United States remains the most influential power, but its Middle East policy is inconsistent. It is deeply involved in regional affairs and can restrain Israel, lift sanctions on Iran, and mediate between Turkey and Israel, but it can also allow war to continue or stand aside. Most likely, it will continue to try different approaches.

• Current Situation: The U.S. and Israel Launch a Large-Scale Attack on Iran, and Iran Retaliates

On February 28, 2026, a joint U.S.–Israeli strike on Iran triggered Iranian retaliation, spreading the conflict across multiple countries, raising the risk of all-out war, and shaking the regional balance of power.

Conclusion

The Middle East is in a long period of adjustment and transition. Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Iran each have strengths and weaknesses, and none has achieved a complete victory or defeat. The new regional order will depend on the policy choices of the United States, Israel, and Iran. Looking ahead, the region is more likely to see “perpetual vigilance and war” than lasting stability.

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About the Author

NIU Xinchun牛新春: Academic Vice President of Ningxia University, Executive Dean of the China-Arab States Research Institute, and Director of the Middle East Studies Institute at the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations.

About the Publication

The Chinese version of this article was published in Contemporary International Relations. （《现代国际关系》）First established in 1981, the Contemporary International Relations (a monthly journal) is a central-level, comprehensive academic monthly publication in the field of international studies, sponsored by the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations. Adhering to its mission of providing high-quality services to readers across the party, government, military, academic, and business sectors to deeply understand and perceive the world, the journal strives to fully exhibit the latest and finest research achievements of experts and scholars on major international strategic issues, the global landscape, international relations theory, international economy, major hot spots, as well as vital developmental shifts in the politics, diplomacy, economy, technology, society, and military affairs of various regions and nations.

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Welcome to the 87th edition of our weekly newsletter! I’m Chenghao Sun, a fellow with the Center for International Security and Strategy (CISS) at Tsinghua University, Council Member of The Chinese Association of American Studies and a visiting scholar at the Paul Tsai China Center of Yale Law School (fall 2024).

In recent conversations with people working at Chinese AI companies, I kept hearing a question that has received less attention in the debate over slowing frontier AI: how would they know if American companies had actually slowed down? A promise by one laboratory says little about what its competitors will do, and a promise that cannot be checked is a weak basis for reciprocal restraint.

That question became more pressing as Presidents Xi and Trump discussed AI in Washington last week. Their support for continued dialogue creates an opening, but the difficult work lies in defining specific risks, making safeguards observable and deciding how the two sides would communicate if a serious incident occurred. I explore those steps in this essay, originally published by ThinkChina on 25 September 2026. The full article follows.

Some of the companies racing hardest to build more powerful artificial intelligence systems are now asking whether they should slow down.

The resignation of Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon over safety concerns sharpened that debate in September. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei subsequently called for the industry to “pace the frontier”, allowing safeguards time to catch up with capabilities. His proposal envisages coordination among democracies and, more cautiously, with China.

But almost immediately, China became the argument against slowing down. If American companies exercise restraint while Chinese competitors continue advancing, caution could become a unilateral competitive disadvantage.

How to know if US companies have slowed down?

Yet in recent conversations with people working at several Chinese AI companies, I have heard a different question: how would they know that American companies had actually slowed down at all?

That question points to the central obstacle to international AI pacing: credibility. Before restraint can become reciprocal, it has to become observable.

China takes the possibility of AI escaping human control seriously. During his visit to Washington on 24 September, President Xi Jinping emphasised that AI should remain under human control and serve people’s well-being. This gives China’s concern about loss of control a clear expression at the highest political level. Beijing also favours broadly inclusive governance through the United Nations. A bilateral understanding would therefore need to fit within a wider international effort.

China’s AI Safety Governance Framework 3.0, released on 14 September, makes those concerns concrete. It identifies models deceiving evaluators, acquiring unauthorised access and resisting shutdown. Its recommendations include restricting agents’ permissions, requiring human approval for high-risk operations and strengthening monitoring and emergency responses. These provisions show how China’s safety agenda extends beyond content moderation to checking the behaviour of increasingly autonomous systems.

The framework provides guidance; it does not itself turn every recommendation into a binding obligation. Existing regulation has a different scope. The 2023 interim measures on generative AI govern services offered to the public in China, imposing duties concerning lawful training data, personal information and illegal content. Services with public opinion or social mobilisation functions must undergo security assessments and algorithm filing.

Measurability and accountability matter

These controls offer regulatory infrastructure, but they do not by themselves establish whether a frontier model can safely operate autonomously. The next task is translating broader safety guidance into measurable testing and enforceable responsibilities. For example, developers should have to demonstrate that an agent cannot acquire additional permissions without authorisation, and that a human can reliably interrupt a dangerous operation. Passing a content assessment alone would not answer those questions.

Chinese companies have also joined international initiatives. Zhipu AI, MiniMax and 01.AI are among the signatories to the Frontier AI Safety Commitments, which include risk thresholds and commitments against developing or deploying systems whose risks cannot be adequately mitigated. That provides common ground, although a voluntary pledge is only a beginning.

Cooperation must nevertheless accommodate different incentives. Leading American laboratories compete for investment, customers and frontier breakthroughs. China combines competition among technology companies and start-ups with state direction and an “AI Plus” agenda promoting adoption across the economy. Chinese developers face commercial pressures too. Neither industry behaves as a single actor, and neither government can secure meaningful restraint simply by reaching an understanding with one company.

Release strategies also matter. Many Chinese developers favour open-weight models, while several leading American laboratories retain tight control over their strongest systems. Neither approach guarantees safety. China’s framework recognises both the difficulty of externally auditing closed systems and the possibility that safeguards in openly released models can be removed. Cooperation should therefore cover both testing before release and responsibilities after deployment. It cannot assume that every developer retains the same control over a model once it reaches users.

The scepticism I have encountered among Chinese practitioners takes three forms. First, Anthropic can slow Anthropic, and OpenAI can slow OpenAI. Neither can guarantee what other American laboratories will do. A Chinese company reciprocating one firm’s restraint could lose ground to another.

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Pacing to preserve the US’s lead?

Second, what exactly counts as “slowing down”? Has a company postponed training, delayed deployment or restricted a dangerous capability? OpenAI’s August disclosure offered one example: it reported temporarily slowing scaling while strengthening safeguards against emerging cyber capabilities. Such detail helps, but competitors still need evidence beyond a company’s own account.

Third, Chinese developers see an opportunity to narrow the technological gap. Pacing can look like a way to preserve the existing hierarchy, particularly when its advocates also support tighter chip restrictions. Amodei explicitly combines his proposal with preserving an American lead over China. That makes Chinese concerns about unequal restraint harder to dismiss.

The 24 September summit has given AI cooperation stronger political backing. According to the Chinese readout, Xi called for continued dialogue on AI’s risks and benefits and joint efforts to prevent its abuse and malicious use. Trump also supported continued dialogue and closer cooperation. These statements build on the recent New York talks, during which Bessent proposed an AI incident notification mechanism. The summit readout does not announce a joint pacing agreement or an operational notification system. The task now is to translate political support into practical arrangements.

Workable options

A workable process could follow a “spiral of cooperation”: make restraint visible, verify it, reciprocate it and gradually institutionalise it. With support for continued dialogue now expressed at the presidential level, governments and companies should work in parallel to turn broad principles into testable commitments.

Companies should specify which capability triggered restraint, what activity was slowed and what conditions would permit resumption. They need not disclose model weights or sensitive training data. The point is to make a limited commitment observable.

Verification could begin through parallel assessments: American firms evaluated by institutions acceptable to them, Chinese firms by institutions acceptable to them, using jointly discussed tests and reporting criteria. Evaluators would need sufficient access to check the relevant claims. Comparable evidence and disclosure of evaluation limits would matter more initially than agreeing on common inspectors.

If one side takes a meaningful, verifiable step, the other could respond with a measure of comparable significance, such as additional testing or delaying a high-risk feature. The actions need not be identical. Reciprocity matters more than symmetry. Early steps should have manageable competitive costs, allowing cooperation to deepen as evidence accumulates.

Governments could give practical effect to the leaders’ support for AI cooperation by agreeing on what constitutes a serious AI incident, designating contacts and rehearsing notification procedures. An alert about an AI agent conducting unauthorised cross-border cyber operations should identify the behaviour, potential impact and containment measures, without requiring disclosure of core technology. This could reduce the risk that a technical failure is immediately interpreted as a hostile state action.

Neither country will stop competing in AI. The practical goal should be a series of speed bumps triggered by especially dangerous capabilities. China and the US do not initially need to agree on how fast AI should advance. They need a way to know when the other side has actually exercised restraint.

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Welcome to the 86th edition of our weekly newsletter! I’m , a fellow with the Center for International Security and Strategy (CISS) at Tsinghua University, Council Member of The Chinese Association of American Studies and a visiting scholar at the Paul Tsai China Center of Yale Law School (fall 2024).

This article is adapted from my remarks at a journalists’ association event in Beijing on September 22 with foreign correspondents ahead of the upcoming China–U.S. summit. HE Yuxi and I have edited the remarks.

Over the past week, journalists from different countries have asked me remarkably similar questions. What has changed in China–U.S. relations since the Beijing summit in May? What can the Washington meeting deliver? Could trade and artificial intelligence offer room for progress? And could Taiwan question or Iran war once again disrupt efforts to stabilize the relationship?

These questions all lead to a broader one: are China and the United States learning to sustain a working relationship despite their disagreements?

That is the question I will have in mind when the two presidents meet. New agreements would be welcome, but their significance will depend on what happens after the leaders leave the room.

What has changed since May?

I would be cautious about describing the current relationship as a reconciliation or a return to normal. Structural conflicts over trade, technology and security remain. Yet something has changed since May: the two governments have devoted more attention to managing their competition.

The idea of a “constructive strategic stability relationship” addresses a problem that has repeatedly damaged bilateral ties. When a dispute arises in one area, can both sides prevent it from spreading across the rest of the relationship?

In recent years, chip export restrictions have quickly affected the broader atmosphere for economic engagement. Friction over Taiwan has disrupted diplomacy, security discussions and people-to-people exchanges. Each dispute has made the next one harder to manage.

Since May, economic teams have continued talking and diplomatic channels have remained open. Disagreements have not brought every other discussion to a halt. This does not mean that competition has become less intense. It suggests that both governments see value in keeping the relationship functioning while they compete.

Washington offers an opportunity to give that approach more substance. I would look for progress in several specific areas, without expecting a comprehensive settlement of the relationship’s underlying disputes.

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Giving trade and investment mechanisms something to do.

The trade and investment bodies agreed in May need a practical agenda. The immediate question is whether they can move from institutional arrangements to decisions that businesses can use.

The recent New York consultations offer one possible starting point. U.S. officials have discussed reducing tariffs on a limited range of non-sensitive goods, including consumer products, agricultural goods, energy and medical equipment. The Associated Press reported that the two sides had moved to operationalize the trade body, with discussions continuing over which products should qualify.

Even a limited first list would matter. It could begin to establish more predictable conditions for ordinary trade, while highly strategic products remain contested. Consumer goods, food and medical supplies should not automatically be caught up in every security dispute.

Purchases will also attract attention. In May, Trump announced a prospective Chinese purchase of 200 Boeing aircraft. The White House also described commitments to buy at least $17 billion in U.S. agricultural products annually in 2026–2028, excluding earlier soybean commitments. The questions now are how those arrangements will be implemented and whether Washington will produce additional orders.

With the U.S. midterm elections approaching, Trump has an obvious interest in results he can present to farmers and manufacturing workers. New agricultural purchases, aircraft orders or an expansion of energy trade would therefore be unsurprising. Reported discussions over tariffs on U.S. liquefied natural gas illustrate how purchases and tariff negotiations may be connected.

From China’s perspective, the terms accompanying those purchases are important. Larger orders should be considered alongside tariff reductions, market access and reliable U.S. supply. Aircraft purchases, for example, depend on confidence that engines, components and after-sales support will remain available. An impressive headline figure means less if companies cannot be sure the underlying transaction will proceed.

Investment could introduce a somewhat different conversation. Reuters has reported that executives from companies including BYD, CATL and Xiaomi may join the visit, alongside representatives from sectors such as consumer electronics, agriculture and finance. The final delegation has not been confirmed, and its composition should not be treated as evidence that particular projects have been agreed.

If such a delegation materializes, however, it would raise a useful question: can Washington distinguish more clearly between importing Chinese products and allowing Chinese companies to invest and produce in the United States?

Political resistance and regulatory barriers make any immediate opening for Chinese electric vehicles unlikely. But the investment mechanism could provide a setting for discussing the conditions under which projects in automobiles, batteries, consumer electronics and other manufacturing sectors might proceed, including how to address data and security concerns.

For years, the bilateral economic debate has revolved around how much China sells to the United States. Investment discussions could give more attention to what Chinese companies might produce there, the jobs they could create and the rules under which they would operate. Whether the U.S. side is prepared to pursue that conversation will be worth watching.

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Building an AI dialogue amid technological competition.

AI has become more prominent on the bilateral agenda since May. In New York, the teams led by Scott Bessent and He Lifeng discussed AI risks, and the United States proposed a mechanism for notifying each other of significant AI safety incidents. According to Reuters’ account of the talks, controls on advanced AI chips were not discussed.

On September 21, Bessent said further AI safety talks were planned in Shenzhen in roughly two months. The scope and operation of the dialogue will still need to be worked out.

China and the United States face two simultaneous realities in AI. They compete over chips, computing power, models and the rules governing access to technology. They also face risks that neither country can address entirely on its own, including AI-assisted cyberattacks, biological misuse, loss of control over autonomous agents and threats to critical infrastructure.

The most useful near-term outcome would be to give discussions of those risks a regular institutional basis. Both sides could designate standing points of contact, agree on which incidents warrant notification and bring government officials and technical experts together at regular intervals. More difficult discussions about military applications and human control could develop over time.

There is also a basic problem of language. Both countries discuss AI safety, but terms such as “loss of control,” “autonomy” and “major incident” may carry different meanings. A notification channel will be more useful if the people using it have some shared understanding of what they are reporting.

I have long believed that strategic trust should not be a prerequisite for this work. Limited trust makes communication more necessary: a serious technical incident could otherwise be mistaken for a deliberate hostile act.

Meanwhile, export controls will remain contentious. China wants the United States to stop expanding restrictions on Chinese companies and advanced technologies. Washington continues to raise concerns about access to critical minerals. A single summit is unlikely to settle these disputes. Some mutual restraint in introducing new measures, together with greater predictability in implementation, would nevertheless make a practical difference to businesses.

More Practical Cooperation beyond Trade.

Counternarcotics cooperation deserves attention because the two sides can work on defined problems even while broader disagreements persist. Precursor chemicals, drug-production equipment, online advertising and illicit financial flows all offer concrete subjects for cooperation.

An outcome on fentanyl should therefore be judged by whether it produces follow-up action. New investigations, better information-sharing, closer scrutiny of illicit funds or more regular working-level contacts would be more informative than another general commitment to cooperate.

People-to-people exchanges deserve a similar standard of assessment. Education, tourism, local exchanges and academic cooperation depend on practical conditions. More accessible visas, better flight connections and fewer obstacles to university partnerships would make renewed engagement tangible to people outside government.

These measures rarely receive the attention given to aircraft orders or tariff announcements. Their effects, however, accumulate over time. Leaders meet only occasionally; students, scholars, businesses and local communities can maintain contact throughout the year. A more stable relationship needs that wider foundation.

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Taiwan question and regional crises remain serious tests.

Taiwan question belongs in a different category from procurement or investment. It concerns China’s core interests and the political foundation of bilateral relations. It cannot be treated as an ordinary commercial bargaining item.

In May, the Chinese side explicitly linked the handling of Taiwan question to the overall stability of China–U.S. relations. The relevant question in Washington is whether U.S. policy statements and subsequent actions reduce the risk of another confrontation. Arms sales and official interactions will be particularly important indicators.

No one should expect a single summit to resolve the Taiwan question. But if political assurances are followed by actions that undermine them, improvements elsewhere in the relationship will remain vulnerable. Managing competition requires a serious understanding of where the other side’s most consequential concerns lie.

Iran presents a different challenge. The United States would like China to use more of its influence with Tehran, while China has its own diplomatic and economic relationship with Iran. Their priorities and assessments will not necessarily coincide.

I would not expect a comprehensive joint plan. Continued direct communication over a ceasefire, the nuclear issue, the Strait of Hormuz and energy security would still be valuable. Such communication can help the two governments understand each other’s intentions even where they disagree about how to proceed.

Regional crises will increasingly affect bilateral relations. A more stable China–U.S. relationship must be able to accommodate differing positions on third countries without turning every conflict into an additional bilateral confrontation.

Test will continue after Washington.

The September summit will be followed by several important political and diplomatic milestones. The U.S. midterm elections will shape the domestic environment in which Trump handles trade, agriculture, manufacturing and China policy. China alone will not determine the election result, but election pressures can influence the timing and presentation of decisions about the relationship.

The APEC meeting in Shenzhen and the G20 summit in Miami will provide further opportunities for high-level engagement later in the year. Additional bilateral meetings should not be assumed before they are confirmed. Still, these gatherings offer occasions to review implementation and decide what comes next.

I will therefore judge Washington’s results over the following months. Do the mechanisms agreed in May begin doing useful work? Are new commitments implemented through October and November? When the later summits arrive, can the two governments build on progress rather than devote their attention to repairing another breakdown?

Competition will continue, and some disagreements may become more difficult. The opportunity in Washington is to establish working arrangements that can endure those pressures. If both sides can keep agreements functioning when the next dispute arises, the summit will have made a meaningful contribution to a more stable relationship.

Edited by HE Yuxi

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Welcome to the 85th edition of our weekly newsletter! I’m , a fellow with the Center for International Security and Strategy (CISS) at Tsinghua University, Council Member of The Chinese Association of American Studies, a visiting scholar at Paul Tsai China Center of Yale Law School in 2024 and Munich Young Leader 2025.

ChinAffairsplus is a newsletter that shares articles by Chinese academics on topics such as China's foreign policy, China-U.S. relations, China-Europe relations, and more. This newsletter was co-founded by my research assistant, ZHANG Xueyu, and me.

Through carefully selected Chinese academic articles, we aim to provide you with key insights into the issues that China’s academic and strategic communities are focused on. We will highlight why each article matters and the most important takeaways. Questions and feedback can be addressed to sch0625@gmail.com.

Today, we have selected an article written by Sun Chenghao and Ma Songruowen on Leverage-Based Strategies of Middle Powers in Global Artificial Intelligence Governance.

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Summary

Against the dual backdrop of intensifying geopolitical rivalry and the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI), the global political and economic order is undergoing profound transformation. In response to the resulting opportunities and challenges, countries have actively participated in AI governance through various means, collectively seeking to promote the orderly development of the global AI ecosystem. As a representative group of states, middle powers warrant closer examination in terms of both their functional roles and strategic choices in contemporary global AI governance.

Drawing on an analytical framework of leverage-based strategies structured around “factor endowments–conversion mechanisms,” this study compares the policy practices of six countries: South Korea, the Netherlands, Canada, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Japan, and Singapore. It finds that middle powers exhibit varying degrees of agency within the global AI governance framework and pursue different strategic pathways to acquire capabilities and influence. Although middle powers are unlikely to fundamentally alter the distribution of power in global AI governance, they play an indispensable role in addressing deficits in global public goods, facilitating regulatory coordination, and establishing platforms for multilateral dialogue. Examining these issues not only helps identify the limits of middle-power influence and the strategic ingenuity of such states, but also provides further empirical support for understanding interactions among actors operating at multiple levels of global AI governance.

Why It Matters

The global AI governance system is at a formative stage, marked by capability stratification and institutional fragmentation. China and the U.S. lead, but major actors (China, U.S., EU) diverge sharply on ethics, regulation, and principles, resulting in “rule excess but consensus deficit.” Many developing countries lack infrastructure and capacity, leaving them marginalized in rule-making. In this stratified and fragmented landscape, middle powers offer a valuable analytical lens. They merit attention for three reasons: they have moderate material capabilities, occupy strategic positions, and possess sustained governance incentives. Notably, “middle power” in this study is not mutually exclusive with “Global South” or “emerging economy” labels.

Existing scholarship falls into two strands: one focuses on institutional arrangements and major-power dynamics in AI governance, often centering on the U.S., China, the EU, or BRICS; the other examines middle powers in global governance but tends toward capability determinism or role preconfiguration, without adequately explaining how middle powers construct discursive authority in novel issue areas.This article addresses that gap by adopting a middle-power perspective. It analyzes their participation strategies vis-à-vis major-power dominance, compares six middle-power cases, and explores their distinctive influence, aiming to enrich understanding of middle-power behavioral logics in global AI governance.

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Key Points

1. Strategic Choices of Middle Powers Participating in Global AI Governance

(1) The Evolution of the Concept of Middle Powers

In recent years, the term “middle power” has been frequently employed by politicians, scholars, and the media. Nevertheless, its meaning remains ambiguous and contested. Debates over the definition and behavioral preferences of middle powers have evolved through approximately three stages.

• The first stage focused on so-called “traditional middle powers.” Territorial size, population, level of economic development, military strength, and the maturity of democratic institutions constituted the principal criteria for identifying such states.

• The second stage began with the emergence of the concept of “emerging middle powers.” These states tend to advocate reform in global governance, call for economic justice, and actively promote regional integration while playing pivotal roles in that process.

• The third stage reflects the profound transformation of the contemporary global political and economic structure. The term “middle power” is now widely used to describe states possessing both material capabilities and regional influence. As a result, it increasingly overlaps with such concepts as “regional powers,” “states with global influence,” “pivotal states,” and “emerging powers.”

In light of the foregoing analysis, this article concurs with scholars such as Jeffrey Robertson and Andrew F. Cooper that research should move beyond the definitional cycle of repeatedly asking, “What exactly is a middle power, and where should the boundaries of this category be drawn?” Instead, a more operational and pragmatic approach should be adopted—one that advances theoretical or empirical inquiry by emphasizing what phenomena the concept can explain within a particular issue area and context.

Accordingly, this article operationally defines “middle powers in global AI governance” as states that do not possess the comprehensive, full-chain capabilities of major powers such as China and the United States and therefore cannot independently determine the overall trajectory of global AI technologies, capital, platforms, and rule systems, but that nevertheless substantially surpass ordinary small states in terms of critical resource endowments, regional or international influence, institutional participation capacity, and strategic nodal value, thereby exerting a sustained influence on global AI governance. Representative middle powers in this field include Singapore, the United Kingdom, South Korea, Israel, Germany, India, Canada, Japan, France, Saudi Arabia, and the Netherlands. These states possess a considerable degree of “embedded agency.”

(2) The Two-Dimensional Interaction Between Factor Endowments and Conversion Mechanisms

Inspired by the economic conception of leverage, whereby limited inputs can be used to generate disproportionately large returns, this article finds that middle powers employ leverage-based participation strategies in global AI governance. More specifically, factor endowments constitute the critical inputs placed at one end of the lever, while conversion mechanisms represent the processes through which leverage is exercised.

• Factor endowments

Factor endowments refer to the resource base that a state can mobilize and allocate during a particular period. Drawing on classical scholarship and contemporary developments in AI, this article focuses on three types of factor endowments: technological, capital, and institutional endowments. Together, these three types constitute the foundational conditions for a state’s participation in international AI competition and governance. They determine both its position within the global AI landscape and its potential to shape the international governance system.

* a. Technological endowments comprise the material and technological conditions that a state possesses in such areas as algorithm research and development, chip design, data resources, and digital infrastructure. They form the hard-power foundation of national innovation and productive capacity.

* b. Capital endowments refer to the capacity of a state’s economic and financial system to mobilize resources, including sovereign wealth funds, cross-border investment networks, technology investment platforms, and merger-and-acquisition instruments. Such resources allow states to compensate for technological deficiencies and to embed themselves in—and potentially shape—global governance networks through capital-based activities.

* c. Institutional endowments refer to a state’s capabilities in AI rule-making, standards coordination, institutional innovation, and agenda construction. They reflect the normative resources and institutional influence available to that state.

• Conversion mechanisms

Conversion mechanisms explain how states transform their factor endowments into foundations of power and sources of influence within the global AI governance system. These mechanisms can be divided into two categories.

* a. Endogenous-capability-led mechanisms. These mechanisms emphasize a logic of power generation centered on the accumulation of endogenous capabilities. Through sustained investment in and intensive development of a particular factor endowment, a state gradually establishes a relatively autonomous capability system. Once this accumulated capability develops into a comparatively stable structural advantage within a particular domain, it may spill over into the international sphere and enhance the state’s relative influence in global AI governance.

* b. Nodal-position-led mechanisms. These mechanisms suggest that state influence does not arise primarily from the gradual accumulation of domestic capabilities. More importantly, it derives from the strategic positions that states occupy within international production networks, critical supply chains, transnational systems of flows, or regional institutional arrangements. By controlling scarce and relatively irreplaceable nodes, these states can combine their limited domestic capabilities with favorable external structural conditions, thereby amplifying their influence.

• Strategic Types

Given their geopolitical standing and extensive resource endowments, major powers can generally establish comprehensive, coordinated strategies across multiple dimensions of global AI governance. Other states, constrained by limited material resources and high barriers to participation, often find it difficult to establish stable fulcrums of leverage. In this sense, leverage-based participation constitutes a distinctive pattern through which middle powers engage in global AI governance. As shown in the table below, different combinations of factor endowments and conversion mechanisms produce six strategic types through which middle powers acquire participatory capabilities and influence in global AI governance.

2. Case Studies of Middle-Power Participation in Global AI Governance

This article selects South Korea, the Netherlands, Canada, the UAE, Japan, and Singapore as representative cases of particular strategic types. In practice, the strategies of middle powers are often multidimensional: a single country may possess several types of factor endowments or pursue multiple conversion pathways simultaneously. These countries were selected because their characteristics in the corresponding dimensions are particularly pronounced, giving them considerable analytical representativeness, cross-national comparability, and empirical distinctiveness. Their selection does not imply that each country’s practices are confined to a single strategic model.

(1) South Korea: A Representative Technological-Accumulation Strategy

South Korea is a middle power with substantial technological endowments. It possesses internationally competitive advantages in semiconductor design and manufacturing and in the development of AI models, while accumulating domestic capabilities through state-led industrial integration and technological diffusion. According to South Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT, the country is seeking to maximize its strengths in information and communications technology, semiconductors, and the manufacture of electronic components, with the objective of elevating its AI competitiveness to the highest level globally.

South Korea has launched initiatives including the Disruptive Technology Initiative and its sovereign AI program. Benefiting from government support, successive technological innovation, and industrial expansion, South Korea is emerging as one of the world’s leading AI powers. It also plays an important role in advancing international cooperation and shaping the global AI agenda, having repeatedly served as the chair or convener of global and regional AI governance mechanisms. Through the large-scale domestic development and application of AI, South Korea has become both an “early responder” to AI-related technological risks and governance challenges and a “provider of practical experience.” This position has, in turn, created opportunities for the country to participate in and coordinate global AI governance.

(2) The Netherlands: A Representative Technological-Control Strategy

Like South Korea, the Netherlands is a middle power with significant technological advantages in the AI sector. However, it tends to acquire structural power by occupying critical positions within the global AI industrial chain. As the only country capable of supplying advanced extreme ultraviolet lithography equipment, the Netherlands holds a monopoly over the world’s most advanced lithography technology and controls a strategic component of the computing supply chain. These technological endowments provide it with greater bargaining space and influence in global AI governance.

The Dutch government has repeatedly leveraged issues of technological security to participate in negotiations concerning international AI ethics and governance rules for AI supply chains. In September 2024, the Dutch government announced that exports of relatively advanced lithography equipment and related technologies to destinations outside the European Union would require special authorization from the Netherlands. This demonstrates how the Netherlands, by controlling an irreplaceable technological node in the global industrial chain, exercises asymmetric influence over technological flows and regulatory negotiations. In doing so, it has reshaped the issue structure and distribution of bargaining power within global AI governance and has consequently become an important participant in the global governance process.

(3) Canada: A Representative Capital-Cultivation Strategy

AI development is highly dependent on capital, giving actors with substantial capital endowments a comparative advantage in global AI governance. Canada is a representative middle power in this category. Its national AI policy has been at the forefront internationally, characterized by forward-looking assessments and planning, clearly defined and pragmatic objectives, and sustained public financial support.

Through strategic capital investment, Canada has cultivated fundamental AI research and a robust talent ecosystem. It has subsequently translated its research outputs into normative concepts and assessment tools capable of international adoption, thereby supplying the knowledge resources required for global AI governance. This has enabled Canada to establish a crucial pathway connecting domestic capabilities with participation in global AI governance.

For example, in 2018, Ann Cavoukian proposed the seven foundational principles of “Privacy by Design.” This concept was subsequently incorporated into the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), becoming an important institutional foundation of European AI governance. Projects conducted by the Vector Institute and the Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute have made significant contributions to global research on AI ethics and the development of tools for assessing algorithmic fairness. These achievements have further strengthened Canada’s image as a “responsible leader” in AI governance.

(4) The United Arab Emirates: A Representative Capital-Leverage Strategy

The UAE regards AI as a strategic priority for national development. Its government has invested substantial financial resources in an effort to secure a leading position both regionally and globally. The UAE’s capital-driven participation in global AI governance is primarily manifested in three respects.

First, it exchanges “capital for access” by participating in the development of global AI infrastructure. MGX, a UAE state-backed investment platform, joined the U.S. government in investing in the Stargate Project, an initiative launched by leading AI companies including OpenAI, Oracle, Microsoft, and Nvidia. This investment not only connects the UAE to the construction of global AI infrastructure through capital participation, but also creates opportunities for the development of its domestic AI sector.

Second, the UAE exchanges “capital for technology” by embedding itself in global networks of core AI technologies. In 2025, MGX acquired a majority stake in Altera and stated that it would help the company become a truly global leader in the AI era.

Third, the UAE exchanges “capital for influence,” thereby acquiring discursive resources for shaping the global AI agenda and narratives of AI development. In November 2025, the UAE proposed an “AI for Development Initiative” at the Group of Twenty (G20) Leaders’ Summit. This initiative created an opportunity for the country to shift from being an “external observer” of international governance debates to an “internal participant.”

(5) Japan: A Representative Institution-Leading Strategy

The institutional architecture of AI governance is currently taking shape, while international norms remain unsettled and important regulatory gaps persist. Japan has sought to assume the role of an institutional “architect” and “leader” by introducing legislation at an early stage and developing innovative, forward-looking policies, thereby attempting to guide the development of global AI governance.

Through a series of policy documents, including the Social Principles of Human-Centric AI and the AI Guidelines for Business, the Japanese government has gradually constructed a domestic AI governance philosophy and institutional system. Japan has subsequently sought to internationalize its domestic governance concepts through multilateral diplomacy, identifying cooperation with friendly countries and the United Nations, the establishment of an AI governance framework, and the exercise of Japanese leadership as important policy objectives. During its presidency of the Group of Seven (G7), for example, Japan promoted the Hiroshima AI Process as a rule-setting platform for international AI governance.

(6) Singapore: A Representative Institution-Bridging Strategy

In recent years, Singapore has actively participated in agenda-setting, principle formulation, and standards coordination in global AI governance. Unlike Japan’s strategy, which primarily emphasizes the international diffusion of domestic norms, Singapore places greater emphasis on its functional role as a “regulatory hub” and “platform intermediary.” By connecting different governance systems and institutional arenas, it seeks to increase its discursive authority and influence in global AI governance.

At the international level, Singapore has pursued two principal approaches. First, it has sought to translate abstract governance principles into operational transnational technological instruments. It launched the AI Verify testing framework to facilitate mutual recognition and interoperability among different governance frameworks at the practical level. Second, Singapore has actively established issue frameworks for global AI governance. It issued the Singapore Consensus on Global AI Safety Research Priorities, providing direction for subsequent global dialogue.

At the regional level, Singapore spearheaded the formulation of the ASEAN Guide on AI Governance and Ethics, thereby promoting greater coordination and consistency among ASEAN member states in the field of AI. Singapore has also led regional cooperation with dialogue partners including the United States, China, and the European Union, helping align ASEAN standards with international standards.

3. Assessing the Impact of Middle Powers on Global AI Governance

(1) Constructive Role

• Providing Gap-Filling Instruments When Major-Power Competition Creates Governance Vacuums

Global AI governance continues to face numerous problems, including inadequate technological assessment tools, weak mechanisms for cross-border cooperation, ambiguous boundaries between rights and responsibilities, and insufficient representation. Although major powers possess greater technological and material capabilities, their governance initiatives inevitably reflect the logic of strategic competition, industrial protection, normative projection, and bloc formation. The products they provide are therefore not necessarily neutral global public goods. The participation of middle powers can help address these deficiencies to a certain extent.

At the institutional level, instruments such as the Netherlands’ Artificial Intelligence Impact Assessment, Japan’s AI Governance Guidelines, and Canada’s Algorithmic Impact Assessment framework provide other countries with diverse forms of knowledge and practical tools from which they may draw. At the technological level, the UAE and Saudi Arabia have successively released open AI models focused on the Arabic language and local cultures. These initiatives can help bridge the digital divide, enable users from a broader range of linguistic and religious communities to benefit from AI technologies, and advance AI development in the Gulf region.

• Amplifying Normative Influence in Areas More Conducive to International Consensus

Most middle powers cannot surpass major AI powers in terms of hard capabilities. They therefore tend to use issues such as safety, fairness, standards, and transparency as points of entry through which to acquire soft power. To some extent, these efforts have heightened and reinforced international attention to the public interest, indirectly reminding and constraining major powers while supporting the sound and orderly development of the global AI sector.

The Dutch government, for example, attaches considerable importance to ethical and trust-related issues arising from AI development. It has organized multiple domestic institutions to study the social implications of AI while advocating greater transparency and accountability for AI systems at the international level.

• Maintaining Essential Cross-Border Coordination and Institutional Connections Within a Fragmented Governance Structure

Against the backdrop of intensifying geopolitical conflict, declining political trust, and resurgent nationalism, middle powers provide limited but essential institutional cohesion. Their participation helps slow the fragmentation and bloc formation of the global AI governance system while preserving a minimum level of pragmatic cooperation among different countries and regions.

For example, the UAE has hosted the Dubai AI Assembly as a platform for cross-regional cooperation. South Korea and the United Kingdom jointly convened the ministerial session of the AI Seoul Summit, creating conditions for international dialogue on AI safety, innovation, and inclusive development.

(2) Functional Limits

First, their domain-specific advantages do not automatically translate into structural power. Compared with major AI powers, middle powers generally cannot establish comprehensive and controllable capability systems encompassing capital provision, industrial ecosystems, infrastructure, core technologies, and institutional rules. The factor endowments on which their influence depends may also lack stability and remain vulnerable to economic cycles, policy adjustments, market volatility, and technological change.

Second, the effectiveness of their governance efforts is highly conditional and susceptible to the intensity of major-power competition. The influence of middle powers in global AI governance often rests on their ability to maneuver flexibly among different platforms and groups. As geopolitical pressure increases and AI issues become progressively securitized and aligned with competing blocs, however, their room for maneuver contracts. Their policy choices consequently become increasingly constrained by external alliance structures and institutional fragmentation.

Conclusion

This article applies a “factor endowment–conversion mechanisms” framework to examine the differentiated strategies of six middle powers (South Korea, the Netherlands, Canada, the UAE, Japan, and Singapore). The findings show that middle powers do not passively adapt to the major-power-dominated structure; instead, they selectively amplify their endowments in technology, capital, or institutions and match endogenous or nodal-position-led pathways, adopting a “leveraging” strategy to gain discourse power and influence beyond their material strength. The six strategies vary in emphasis. Their governance effects include filling gaps, amplifying norms, and providing institutional cohesion, but their impact is constrained by external shocks and the intensity of great-power competition.

For China, middle powers are not passive balancers but active shapers, and their logic aligns well with the principle of extensive consultation, joint contribution, and shared benefits. China should pay greater attention to this group, encourage their roles in agenda coordination and regulatory interoperability, and use cooperation with middle powers to expand ties with smaller states, thereby building an AI cooperation network that extends from bilateral to multilateral levels, thus advancing a global community with a shared future in artificial intelligence.

About the Author

SUN Chenghao孙成昊：Fellow with the Center for International Security and Strategy (CISS) at Tsinghua University, Council Member of The Chinese Association of American Studies and a visiting scholar at the Paul Tsai China Center of Yale Law School (fall 2024). Professor Sun’s research interests mainly include: American politics and diplomacy, China-U.S. relations, U.S.-Europe relations, U.S.-Russia relations, AI and international security governance.

Ma Songruowen马宋若文：PhD student, Oxford Department of International Development.

About the Publication

The Chinese version of this article was published in Forum of World Economics & Politics(《世界经济与政治论坛》).It is an academic journal sponsored by the Jiangsu ProvinceAcademy of Social Sciences, which mainly publishes original research papers, reviews, and commentaries. The journal was founded in 1981, enjoying a high reputation and influence in the academic community.

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Welcome to the 84th edition of our weekly newsletter! I’m Chenghao Sun, a fellow with the Center for International Security and Strategy (CISS) at Tsinghua University, Council Member of The Chinese Association of American Studies and a visiting scholar at the Paul Tsai China Center of Yale Law School (fall 2024).

As the anticipated China–U.S. leaders’ meeting approaches, attention is turning to its agenda and the prospects for stabilizing bilateral relations. Meanwhile, recent developments in AI, including renewed warnings from industry leaders such as Dario Amodei about the risks of frontier models, have raised questions about how safety concerns might shape cooperation between the two countries.

Can the meeting bring greater predictability to China–U.S. relations? Will calls for stronger AI safeguards create opportunities for cooperation, or deepen disagreements over technological competition? Drawing on Professor Sun Chenghao’s recent interviews with the Associated Press, CNN, the South China Morning Post, Agence France-Presse and the China Review News Agency, this edition explores the meeting’s potential agenda and the prospects for bilateral AI dialogue.

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SUN Chenghao: If the visit proceeds as planned, I believe the priority will be to consolidate the stabilization in relations since the leaders’ meeting in May, rather than pursue an all-encompassing “grand bargain.” The aim would be to translate the leaders’ consensus on a “constructive China–U.S. relationship of strategic stability” into more sustainable policy arrangements. The concept itself recognizes that neither side expects competition to disappear. Instead, both hope to sustain cooperation, keep competition within bounds, and manage differences, avoiding a return to a cycle of escalation and retaliation.

I see at least four groups of issues on the agenda. The first is trade and economic relations, including how to extend the existing trade truce, whether tariffs can be reduced further, and how to address export controls on rare earths and other critical minerals alongside U.S. technology restrictions. This is the area most likely to produce tangible results and an important test of whether a temporary truce can provide more stable expectations. The second is Taiwan, the most sensitive political and security issue. Beijing will pay particular attention to whether Washington avoids sending provocative new signals through arms sales and interactions with Taiwan. The third is AI and technology. Competition over chips will be difficult to resolve in the short term, but limited common interests have emerged around AI safety and cyber risks. The fourth is international and regional issues, including the Middle East.

What matters most is whether the meeting can help establish a pattern of interaction in which competition persists, but individual disputes no longer repeatedly escalate into crises affecting the entire relationship.

SUN Chenghao: “Constructive strategic stability” should not be understood as a comprehensive thaw or reconciliation. Differences over trade, technology, Taiwan, and regional security remain, and there is still a strong consensus in Washington on competing with China. Tough statements from individual officials or new disputes do not, by themselves, mean that strategic stability has failed. The key question is whether these disputes can be contained or will continue spilling over into other areas.

One prominent challenge is the tension between the leaders’ desire for stability and the competitive impulses within government departments. Whether political consensus can become policy boundaries respected across departments will determine whether stability lasts beyond one or two successful meetings.

I would watch three indicators: whether the two sides reduce sudden escalations in tariffs, export controls, and sanctions; whether major disruptions involving Taiwan and other sensitive issues can be avoided; and whether positive agendas—including trade, AI risk management, and people-to-people exchanges—continue to advance. Ultimately, strategic stability must be judged by whether the two countries can prevent specific disputes from developing into comprehensive confrontation.

SUN Chenghao: Taiwan may not be the issue most likely to yield an announced “deliverable,” but it could be the most important issue for risk management. Beijing has long regarded Taiwan as the most important and sensitive issue in China–U.S. relations. At the leaders’ meeting in May, the Chinese side explicitly linked Taiwan to the stability of the broader relationship. This time, Beijing is therefore likely to emphasize the need for Washington to avoid actions that cross established policy boundaries, particularly by making its approach to arms sales, interactions with Taiwan, and “Taiwan independence” more predictable.

The Trump administration presents a complicated picture. On the one hand, U.S. policy toward Taiwan has considerable institutional continuity, underpinned by the Taiwan Relations Act, bipartisan support in Congress, and the executive branch’s security policy apparatus. These will not fundamentally change because of a single leaders’ meeting. On the other hand, Trump’s approach is more transactional and personalized than that of more conventional U.S. administrations. He often weighs the costs and benefits of individual issues within the broader China–U.S. relationship. This means the White House, Congress, and national security agencies may not always move in step on specific Taiwan-related decisions.

The most realistic objective is therefore to place Taiwan within the broader framework for managing bilateral risks. Resolving the issue or expecting a fundamental change in U.S. policy is unlikely. Clearer communication about red lines and restraint around major actions that could trigger miscalculation would themselves help reduce the likelihood of a crisis. Taiwan is, in this sense, one of the most important stress tests for “constructive strategic stability.”

Regarding arms sales, Beijing has not publicly announced an explicit condition that any new U.S. arms sale to Taiwan would lead to the meeting’s cancellation. Its public statements over the past few months nevertheless suggest that, if Washington hopes to stabilize relations through presidential diplomacy, it needs to create a political atmosphere on Taiwan consistent with that objective.

The issue is not simply whether an arms sale occurs, but also its scale, timing, and the capabilities involved. U.S. arms sales to Taiwan have continued for decades, and China has consistently opposed them. A particularly large, militarily significant, or politically symbolic sale immediately before an important leaders’ meeting would be more likely to be interpreted by Beijing as a strategic signal than as a routine continuation of existing policy. That would create an obvious tension between commitments to stability at the highest level and major actions on the relationship’s most sensitive issue.

Recent congressional visits to Taiwan and proposals for arms sales form part of the backdrop, but a direct causal link should not be assumed. U.S. Taiwan policy has long been shaped by the executive branch, Congress, and the national security establishment, and congressional efforts to strengthen security support for Taiwan are not new. From Beijing’s perspective, the more important question is whether the White House can maintain the overall direction of its China policy under domestic political pressure. For “constructive strategic stability” to be credible, it must be reflected in concrete policy decisions as well as statements at leaders’ meetings. This helps explain why Taiwan arms sales are particularly sensitive at this moment.

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SUN Chenghao: I think we need to distinguish technological competition from the governance of technology-related risks. Advanced chips, computing power, model capabilities, and export controls directly affect how both countries assess their future technological advantages. They are unlikely to become areas of substantial cooperation in the near term.

Recent U.S. debates about AI illustrate this tension. Some business leaders are increasingly concerned about loss of control, cyberattacks, and biological risks associated with frontier AI, while policymakers worry that slowing development could weaken the United States’ competitive position against China. AI is simultaneously a matter of safety governance and geopolitical competition.

Even so, AI safety could provide a limited opening for common ground. Both countries increasingly recognize that some AI risks are transnational and will not stop at national borders simply because the two countries are strategic competitors. These include large-scale AI-enabled cyberattacks, the malicious use of advanced models in biological applications, uncontrollable behavior by AI agents, and the need for timely communication after major AI incidents. Addressing these issues does not require prior agreement on chip controls or technological leadership.

If the leaders’ meeting makes progress, the most realistic outcome would be clear political authorization for continued AI safety dialogue, rather than a comprehensive governance agreement. This could support regular communication among officials, technical experts, and companies, gradually building shared terminology, risk classifications, and procedures for reporting major incidents. Verification, evaluation standards, and even some military AI risks could be discussed later, if trust and technical conditions permit. Technology is unlikely to become an opening for broad bilateral cooperation, but AI safety could be one of the few areas where limited common rules are possible amid intense competition.

SUN Chenghao: I think they have narrowed the political space for cooperation, but have not eliminated it. From a Chinese perspective, the main problem with Amodei’s essay is that it combines two different agendas: managing genuine AI safety risks and preserving a U.S. technological lead over China. His proposals for tighter chip controls, restrictions on access to advanced compute, and a crackdown on alleged model distillation reinforce Beijing’s concern that “AI safety” could become another instrument of technological containment.

At the same time, it would be a mistake to dismiss the entire safety debate as geopolitical competition. China itself is paying growing attention to loss-of-control risks, malicious use, cyber threats, and the safety of AI agents. The Foreign Ministry has recently reiterated that China gives equal weight to AI development and security and takes both inherent and secondary risks seriously.

The key question is whether the two countries can create some separation between competition over capabilities and cooperation on risks. If Washington defines AI safety primarily through the goal of slowing China down, Beijing’s confidence in such cooperation will inevitably decline. But if the agenda focuses on risks that could harm both countries—such as AI-enabled cyberattacks, biological misuse, major model failures, or loss of control—meaningful room for cooperation remains. Amodei himself acknowledges the need for international coordination, including with China. The space is narrower, but it is still there.

SUN Chenghao: At this stage, I would not begin by seeking an ambitious, comprehensive bilateral AI governance agreement. A more realistic approach would start with high-consequence risks that neither country wants to see and that have cross-border implications. These include AI-enabled cyberattacks, biological risks, major model failures or loss of control, abnormal behavior by AI agents, and communication following serious AI safety incidents. Such issues offer a relatively clear basis for identifying minimum shared interests.

The next step would be to develop a common vocabulary: how to define a “high-risk model,” which capabilities should trigger more rigorous evaluation, and what kinds of incidents require notification. Discussions on evaluation methods, verification mechanisms, and more sensitive military applications could follow.

Above all, the two countries need mechanisms that can function even when strategic trust is limited, including regular intergovernmental communication, exchanges among technical experts, and channels for discussing major incidents. China and the United States do not need to resolve their broader AI competition before they begin reducing risks that neither side wants to bear.

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Welcome to the 83rd edition of our weekly newsletter! I’m , a fellow with the Center for International Security and Strategy (CISS) at Tsinghua University, Council Member of The Chinese Association of American Studies and a visiting scholar at the Paul Tsai China Center of Yale Law School (fall 2024).

ChinAffairsplus is a newsletter that shares articles by Chinese academics on topics such as China’s foreign policy, China-U.S. relations, China-Europe relations, and more. This newsletter was co-founded by my research assistant, ZHANG Xueyu, and me.

Through carefully selected Chinese academic articles, we aim to provide you with key insights into the issues that China’s academic and strategic communities are focU.S.ed on. We will highlight why each article matters and the most important takeaways. Questions and feedback can be addressed to sch0625@gmail.com

Today, we have selected an article written by Zheng Chunrong and Han Yanhong, which focuses on the Europe’s Common Security and Defence Policy.

Summary

The Russia-Ukraine conflict has triggered an unprecedented defence crisis on the European continent. Against this backdrop, although France and Germany possess both the capacity and the willingness to assume a leadership role in the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP), they have found it difficult to form a stable joint force on major security and defence issues, owing to institutional arrangements, divergent interests among member states, and differences in the two countries’ strategic orientations.

These factors have, in turn, hindered the two countries from exercising sustained and effective co-leadership on key CSDP issues. Looking ahead, Franco-German leadership in the CSDP will be shaped primarily by three intersecting variables: the trajectory of France’s domestic politics, the reconfiguration of Germany’s security alliance networks, and the prospects of US-European relations.

Why It Matters

The Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) has long been regarded as the weakest link in the process of European integration. Meanwhile, the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict has drastically reshaped Europe’s security landscape. The return of Donald Trump to office, alongside his sustained rollback of U.S. security guarantees to Europe, has also imposed unprecedented security crises and pressures for defence integration across the continent. In practice, while certain progress has been achieved in defence integration, in-depth cooperation in pivotal domains continues to stall. This article seeks to investigate whether France and Germany have overcome their bilateral divergences and effectively supplied joint security and defence leadership amid the surging demand for deeper European defence integration.

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Key Points

1. The Formation and Constraints of Franco-German Leadership within the CSDP

France-Germany leadership in the CSDP is not inherent; instead, it has gradually taken shape and gained momentum under specific security pressures and institutional contexts, but its effectiveness remains constrained by institutional rules, member-state divisions, and strategic differences between France and Germany.

(1) Shared Vulnerabilities Faced by EU Member States

The Russia-Ukraine conflict has laid bare three major shared vulnerabilities of EU member states within the CSDP: heavy reliance on Russian energy, insufficient military capabilities, and inadequate defence budgets.

To begin, Europe was highly dependent on Russian energy supplies. The outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict and subsequent sanctions against Russia drove the EU to largely decouple itself from Russia in the energy sector. The ensuing slowdown in national economic growth and growing pains of the energy transition have further eroded the EU’s economic and industrial foundation for ramping up defence spending.

Second, EU member states generally suffer from insufficient military capabilities. The Russia-Ukraine conflict has highlighted hidden risks stemming from the EU’s chronically insufficient defence investment. States have heavily depleted their domestic arms stockpiles to aid Ukraine, which has, in turn, weakened their own defensive strength. Meanwhile, inconsistent military equipment standards among nations have undermined aid delivery efficiency. Coupled with the EU’s inadequate military transport infrastructure and the absence of a unified cross-border military transit mechanism, the speed of aid to Ukraine has been further slowed.

Lastly, EU member states are generally confronted with fiscal pressures stemming from surging defence expenditures. The outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict has compelled European countries to drastically ramp up military spending, while slowing economic growth has concurrently reduced tax revenues. Such an imbalance between revenue and expenditure forces national governments to make tough trade-offs between defence investment and the security of people’s livelihoods.

(2) EU Member States’ Demand for Leadership from France and Germany

The aforementioned challenges highlight the shared vulnerabilities confronting EU member states in the wake of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, creating an urgent need for robust leadership to boost the EU’s security and defence capabilities. Since France and Germany have occupied central roles in Russia-related diplomacy, including the Normandy Format negotiations dating back to 2014, several European countries naturally looked to France and Germany to spearhead a robust collective security and defence response from the EU following the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

(3) The Willingness of France and Germany to Exercise Leadership

Faced with the regional security crisis triggered by the Russia-Ukraine conflict, France and Germany have demonstrated a strong willingness to take the lead and thus have taken tangible actions. Multiple signs indicate that the leaders of the two countries are ready to proactively cooperate to steer European defence integration forward.

2. The Leadership Effectiveness and Limits of France and Germany in CSDP

(1) Power Resources

In terms of military capacity, France and Germany together account for a substantial share of the EU’s total defence spending, providing critical backing for the EU’s CSDP in armaments, military personnel, and funding.

As for institutional resources, first, France and Germany can fully leverage their core standing within the EU and the rotating presidency framework to translate their own strategic priorities into common EU policies. Second, in respect of decision-making influence, France and Germany benefit from the special weight granted to major powers under the EU’s decision-making mechanisms. Third, when it comes to implementation and delivery, the capacity advantages of France and Germany further strengthen their institutional resources.

Regarding ideational resources, drawing on their unique experience and credibility advantages, France and Germany retain significant influence over EU security affairs.

However, the article stresses that these resources do not automatically translate into effective joint leadership, since leadership outcomes are also shaped by institutional constraints, follower preferences, and the strategies used by France and Germany.

(2) Environmental Constraints

The CSDP preserves substantial autonomy for member states in defence and security affairs. Defence and security matters falling under the scope of the CSDP touch upon the core sovereignty of each member state, and its decision-making mechanism stipulates that unanimous consent from all Council members is required for most major issues. This institutional design grants every member state substantive veto power, creating structural constraints that curb the willingness of individual countries — including France and Germany — to exercise leadership.

The Russia-Ukraine conflict has laid bare stark divergences among EU member states over the CSDP. These disagreements are closely tied to the specific functions and mandates of the CSDP and have grown more pronounced amid the urgency of the conflict. Regarding military assistance and crisis intervention, the EU swiftly delivered military support to Ukraine after the outbreak of the conflict, yet member states held markedly different positions. On the agenda of strategic autonomy, member states led by France, Spain, and Italy advocate bolstering the EU’s defence autonomy and reducing reliance on the United States. By contrast, Germany aligns its stance with Eastern European states and the three Baltic countries, such as Poland, viewing NATO and the United States as the primary bulwark against threats from Russia.

(3) Leadership Strategies

First, following the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, France and Germany have taken an active lead in shaping the CSDP agenda. By advancing defence industrial integration, boosting defence spending, and pushing forward the implementation of the “Re-arm Europe” initiative, they have delivered solid backing for the deepening of the EU’s defence policies.

Second, both France and Germany are adept at leveraging coalition strategies to inject momentum into European defence cooperation. Nevertheless, France and Germany each form separate coalitions with other EU member states rather than establishing the much-anticipated bilateral alliance between themselves, which deeply reflects their inherent divergences on defence matters.

Third, France and Germany supply shared knowledge for EU security policies by putting forward new strategic concepts, thereby shaping the security cognitive frameworks of other member states. For France, its most emblematic concept is “European strategic autonomy”, which aims to enable Europe to make independent decisions in key sectors, including defence, and cut reliance on external powers. On Germany’s side, the concept of the “Zeitenwende” (turning point of the era) proposed by Scholz serves as its core principle of shifts in Europe’s security landscape and has exerted far-reaching influence across the EU. Overall, France and Germany have reached growing consensus on addressing “a new era with new challenges” and advancing the vision that “Europe must strengthen its defence and operational capabilities”. However, certain discrepancies persist in their specific interpretations and practical implementation pathways. From France’s perspective, Germany’s Zeitenwende framework remains overly transatlantic-oriented, rather than prioritizing European strategic autonomy as France advocates.

Conclusion

Looking ahead, the leadership of France and Germany within the CSDP will be jointly shaped by three key variables: the trajectory of domestic politics in France, the restructuring of Germany’s security alliance networks, and the outlook for transatlantic relations. Overall, France and Germany are expected to retain their central role in advancing the CSDP in the years to come. Nevertheless, their leadership model will more likely feature consultation, networking, and conditional engagement. While sustaining their resource input and institutional advantages, the two countries will need to better address divergences among member states, institutional constraints, and shifts in the external strategic environment.

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About the Author

Zheng Chunrong（郑春荣）: Dr. Zheng is Professor at Tongji University, Director of the Institute for German Studies, the Institute for European Union Studies, and the German Research Center at Tongji University. He also serves as Executive Director of the Chinese Society for European Studies and Vice President of the Shanghai Society for European Studies. His primary research fields cover German and European politics and diplomacy, China-German and China-EU relations, and the trilateral relations among China, the United States, and Europe.

Han Yanhong（韩彦红） is a student at the School of Foreign Studies, Tongji University.

About the publication

The Chinese version of this article was published in Foreign Theoretical Trends (《国外理论动态》). This journal is a comprehensive theoretical bimonthly journal, listed as a source journal of the Chinese Social Sciences Citation Index (CSSCI) and a national core Chinese journal. It documents emerging developments, issues, and trends in contemporary global economic, political, cultural, and social spheres.

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Welcome to the 82ed edition of our weekly newsletter! I’m , a fellow with the Center for International Security and Strategy (CISS) at Tsinghua University, Council Member of The Chinese Association of American Studies, a visiting scholar at Yale Law School in 2024 and Munich Young Leader 2025.

ChinAffairsplus is a newsletter that shares articles by Chinese academics on topics such as China’s foreign policy, China-U.S. relations, China-Europe relations, and more. This newsletter was co-founded by my research assistant, , and me.

Through carefully selected Chinese academic articles, we aim to provide you with key insights into the issues that China’s academic and strategic communities are focused on. We will highlight why each article matters and the most important takeaways. Questions and feedback can be addressed to sch0625@gmail.com

Today, we have selected an article written by SUN Haiyong on the Return of Geopolitics, International Competition for Critical Minerals and Supply Chain Restructuring.

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Summary

The shifting power balance among major powers is intensifying global geopolitical competition, leading to restructuring pressures for the global supply chains of critical minerals. During this period, the priority of major powers on critical mineral supply chains has shifted from efficiency to security. The energy transition process, which relies on critical minerals, is increasingly linked to the geopolitical competition among major powers. Additionally, the critical mineral supply chain policies pursued by the United States and its key allies, as well as some mineral-rich countries, are motivated by “resource nationalism”, and misaligned with their respective industrial endowments. All these factors are shaping the critical mineral development and cooperation policies of raw material-importing and end-product-consuming countries, as well as major mineral-rich countries.

In the process of geopolitical return, Western countries led by the United States are attempting to build critical mineral supply chains that significantly reduce China’s influence and limit China’s rise. Meanwhile, some mineral-rich countries, particularly those in the Global South, are striving to maximize their resource benefits. On one hand, as this strategic competition unfolds, Western countries face difficulties in restructuring critical mineral supply chains due to domestic industrial conditions and the global industrial development landscape. On the other hand, the industrial autonomy of mineral-rich countries in the Global South continues to grow, as they benefit from China’s significant rise in national power and its support for their country. The influence of mineral-rich and mineral processing countries in the Global South within the international division of labor for critical minerals is also steadily increasing. In the future, industrial cooperation among mineral-rich and processing countries in the Global South, along with partnerships between these countries and select Western enterprises, could enable the Global South to build new critical mineral supply chains in certain mineral sectors, significantly reducing U.S. influence.

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Why it Matters

In the third decade of the 21st century, the global political and economic landscape is undergoing its most profound systemic transformation since the end of the Cold War, asgeopolitical forces reassert their dominance over the international order in new ways. This process is vividly mirrored in the domain of supply chains. The global production chain system, once constructed by the neoliberal globalization narrative as a “depoliticized” arena, is experiencing a historic turning point where nations reshape value chains through the lens of national security and restructure production networks based on strategic competition.

Existing scholarship delineates the landscape of international competition on critical minerals through three primary lenses. First, the securitization theory perspective posits that the United States, experiencing hegemonic anxiety due to its inability to establish a “core-periphery” structure, frames China as a threat through securitizing discourse and policies while building institutionalized policy networks with its allies. Second, the geopolitical and power competition perspective argues that geopolitical shifts and the pandemic have exacerbated mutual distrust, intensifying competition centered on supply chain resilience. The U.S.and other West countries are restructuring supply chains under the banner of “de-risking,” driving shifts in geo-trade blocs and steering globalization toward compartmentalization and bloc-formation through club-based partnerships. Third, the geo-economic perspective highlights China’s heavy reliance on Pan-South China Sea nickel resources, which faces challenges from containment, political risks, and resource nationalism, even as China promotes regional cooperation and production network coupling. Concurrently, Latin American countries utilize asymmetric dependencies to enhance their agency, striving to translate resources into developmental autonomy, although the limits of this translation are determined by a trilateral game and vary across different mineral types. Meanwhile, the United States attempts to counter China’s dominance through geo-economic strategies.

While highly insightful, the corporate literature doesn’t fully grapple with the contradictions between competitive drivers and the holistic roles played by countries across various nodes of the supply chain, thereby limiting a systemic understanding of restructuring prospects. In reality, the driving factors are complex and contradictory. Although great power competition is the primary narrative, the policies of countries positioned at different nodes are just as important. This article breaks new ground by systematically assessing the structural limits on Western ambitions to restructure supply chains. It also explains why the Global South is steadily gaining influence across all nodes of the critical mineral supply chain.

Key Points

1. The Return of Geopolitics and the Dynamics of International Competition over Critical Minerals

Under the globalized division of labor, the critical mineral supply chain once took the form of a geo-economic competitive landscape, characterized by deep cooperation among resource-rich nations, processing nations, and downstream manufacturing/consuming countries. In contrast, geopolitical competition over critical minerals is now reshaping the industrial landscape through policy declarations, alliance-building, and coercive pressure—aimed at decoupling from “over-dependence” on rivals. Since the second decade of the 21st century, critical minerals have increasingly become a pivotal factor in geopolitical rivalries, with both geopolitical and geo-economic logics jointly shaping national policy orientations.

• From Efficiency Supremacy to Security Primacy

Current supply chain adjustments are driven by a dual logic: first, the “power-security” logic under which the U.S. and the West promote domestic substitution and intra-alliance or friend-shoring circulation; second, the principle of efficiency optimization, which still exhibits path dependency on non-sensitive sectors. The spatial distribution of critical minerals across various stages is highly uneven, categorizing nations into three archetypes: mineral-exporting countries, import-dependent processing countries, and downstream manufacturing/consuming countries—with China positioning itself as a major import-dependent processing powerhouse. The current processing landscape is a market-driven outcome of developed nations downsizing their metallurgical capacities during globalization, while China scaled up capacity by leveraging factor endowment advantages. However, perceiving China’s industrial upgrading as a threat to the Western-dominated international division of labor, the U.S. and the West have begun to redefine what supply chain security really means.

First, the deepening external reliance of the U.S. and the West on critical raw materials has intensified their security anxieties. The U.S. depends heavily on imports for most of its critical minerals, and EU imports are similarly concentrated in a few sources such as China. Furthermore, the blurring boundaries of dual-use technologies have turned niche metals into strategic materials; China’s deep integration even into the U.S. military supply chain underscores the depth of this dependence.

Second, China’s advantages in smelting, processing, and downstream manufacturing, contrasted with the relative decline of Western capabilities following “deindustrialization,” have led the West to expose its lack of supply chain control as a security vulnerability.

Third, great power rivalry and crisis shocks have accelerated the “securitization” of the issue. The U.S. has pursued containment against China while amplifying the “China supply chain threat” narrative; meanwhile, the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine conflict have exposed supply chain fragilities.

Consequently, competition over critical minerals has escalated from a market-driven pursuit of efficiency to a geopolitical confrontation encompassing economic, technological, and national security dimensions, with supply chain evolution increasingly shaped by the alliance systems’ foreign policies rather than market forces, disrupting established industrial cooperation patterns.

• The Coupling and Alignment of the Green Transition and Great Power Geopolitical Competition

The return of geopolitics has allowed power competition to once again dominate international relations. Whilecooperation on the energy transition is essential to advancing the global climate agenda, the U.S. and otherWestern countries—driven by growing concerns over their lack of competitiveness in the new energy sector—have increasingly weaponized and restructured the critical mineral supply chain.

The clean energy industry has exponentially driven up demand for critical minerals, with market sizes for lithium, cobalt, and nickel multiplying, pushing energy transition minerals to the center of the mining industry and placing them at the core of major economies’ strategic mineral lists. Potential supply-demand gaps have fueled concerns over “greenflation,” which could exacerbate interstate tensions or even trigger conflicts—despite the fact that global reserves are not structurally scarce, scarcity expectations are inflated by commercial speculation, and emerging alternativetechnologies are poised to reshape demand.

Nonetheless, the U.S. and the West remain highly vigilant against China’s dominance in clean energy equipment manufacturing and mineral supply chains. They seek to constrain China’s competitiveness through supply chain restructuring. At its core, its essence does not lie in their unwillingness to import at scale based on market principles, which would only augment China’s power. Rather, it concerns the industrial standing and relative gains of major powers in the global energy transition. Even if some Western economies slow down their transition, global green investments will continue to grow, ensuring that the critical mineral gambit remains a focal battleground.

• The Misalignment Between Economic/Resource Nationalism and Industrial Endowments

Against the backdrop of intensifying great power competition, both Western manufacturing/consuming nations and energy/mineral-producing nations seek to enhance resource control and industrial yields. “Resource nationalism” manifests not only as the Global South strengthening resource control but also as the West’s strategic intervention in supply chains. The policies of certain countries have detached from their factor endowments, exacerbating competitive disarray.

Under the traditional “core-periphery” configuration, mineral-producing countries in the Global South occupied the low end of the value chain, processing nations like China sat at the “semi-periphery,” while developed nationsmaintained core positions in certain downstream sectors. The rise of emerging powers and middle powers is driving the evolution of this landscape. The new wave of resource nationalism in the Global South focuses heavily on critical minerals but is more moderate than in the past, tightening regulation while still welcoming foreign capital, thereby shifting the relationship between resource states and foreign capital toward “cooperative competition.” Concurrently, Western economic nationalism has experienced a resurgence, particularly post-2020. Its resource nationalism policies deploy subsidies, investment barriers, market protectionism, and overseas control to suppress rivals and solidify its position in the division of labor—a phenomenon that is both a product of power transition and an extension of value chain restructuring.

In policy execution, certain Western consuming nations disregard their endowment constraints, attempting to forcibly alter the international division of labor through industrial policies and geopolitical maneuvers. Meanwhile, some mineral-rich nations, constrained by market access and geopolitical coercion, implement measures detached from their own economic structures and technological capacities. This exhibits a stark misalignment between policy and endowment, ultimately distorting the evolution of the critical mineral supply chain.

2. Geopolitical Competition and the Restructuring Paths of the Global Critical Mineral Supply Chain

Geopolitical competition deeply influences the policy evolution of countries across all segments of the supply chain. Guided by perceptions of “threats,” Western consuming nations prioritize security logic over efficiency, tightening their grip on supply chains through industrial policies, diplomatic coordination, and geopolitical competition. Conversely, mineral-producing countries in the Global South leverage the policy space carved out by great power rivalry to actively pursue “resource nationalism” and advance their industrialization processes.

• Western Consuming Nations: Advancing Upstream Supply Chain Diversification and Restricting China’s Role

The U.S. and the West support domestic mining and smelting internally while strengthening resource control externally, aiming to build a “de-Sinicized” supply chain, squeeze China’s overseas mining cooperation space, and weaken its industrial capabilities.

(1) Supporting Domestic Production

Successive U.S. administrations have utilized executive orders and industrial policies, such as the Inflation Reduction Act, to incentivize domestic critical mineral extraction and processing through subsidies and tax credits, explicitly positioning the country as a major producer of non-fuel minerals. The European Union, via the Critical Raw Materials Act, has set benchmarks for domestic extraction, processing, and recycling to curb import reliance on single sources, reflecting a decline in the weight of free trade and a rise in industrial security demands.

(2) Fostering Allied Collaboration

Constrained by factor costs, the West views “friend-shoring” collaboration as the cornerstone of supply chain diversification. Mechanisms led by the U.S., such as the Minerals Security Partnership (MSP), the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) Supply Chain Agreement, and the “C5+1” Critical Minerals Dialogue, aim to construct exclusive international clubs. These mechanisms propagate Western environmental and social governance standards to execute a strategy of “soft balancing.” Under U.S. pressure, countries like Australia have reorganized their mining supply chains, causing setbacks to Sino-Australian cooperation. The EU, by contrast, emphasizes a balance between strategic autonomy and openness.

(3) Strengthening Control over Critical Mineral Resources

The U.S. and the West reinforce control over resource-rich nations through sanctions, proxy interventions, and economic inducements. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), for instance, the G7-backed “Lobito Corridor” project forces the country to strike a balance between China and the West. The Trump administration even used coercive tactics with allies. Its repeated expressions of interest in annexing Greenland or purchasing resource access from Canada underscored a clear intent to seize rare earths and other resources. Likewise, it sought to trade aid for the rights to develop Ukraine’s minerals—highlighting a geopolitical logic that prioritizes resource control over alliance commitments.

• Mineral-Exporting Countries: Enhancing the Value-Add of Mineral Resources

Mineral-exporting countries are taking advantage of the strategic space opened up by the return of geopolitics to increase their share of resource revenue by raising royaltiesand taxes, advancing nationalization, and developing downstream industries.

(1) Developing Downstream Industries

Indonesia serves as a textbook case: by banning raw ore exports and mandating domestic processing, it attracted multi-nation investments and replaced China as the largest producer of refined nickel. African nations like the DRC and Zambia have jointly developed a cross-border Battery Economic Zone, striving to capture more value from copper and cobalt. Similarly, Brazil and Australia are actively expanding processing capacities, proving that regardless of developmental levels, states are committed to extending their domestic value chains.

(2) Advancing Nationalization

Mineral-producing states increase returns by restricting foreign equity and nationalizing strategic minerals. Indonesia mandated that foreign equity must not exceed 49%, while Chile designated lithium as a strategic mineral and promoted public-private partnerships, diluting the equity and returns of certain foreign enterprises. Such policies shift the dynamic between resource states and foreign capital from a zero-sum game to a competition over interest distribution.

(3) Constructing Monopolistic Alliances

Certain countries with highly concentrated resources have attempted to replicate the OPEC model. South American “Lithium Triangle” nations and Brazil once deliberated on forming a lithium alliance, while South Africa has called for a unified African stance on specific minerals. Although facing hurdles due to supply shocks from producers like Australia, such visions inject substantial uncertainty into the market.

(4) Diversifying Investment Sources and Export Markets

To balance external partnerships and hedge against geopolitical risks, Brazil actively courts Western investment for its rare earth and graphite projects. Under U.S. influence, the DRC obstructed acquisitions by Chinese firms under the pretext of preventing investment source monopolization, seeking partnerships with Western corporations instead. This indicates that U.S. geopolitical maneuvering has altered the cooperative configurations of certain mineral-rich nations.

3. Geopolitical Competition and the Restructuring Prospects of the Global Critical Mineral Supply Chain

While the U.S. and the West attempt to decouple supply chains from China through industrial policies and geopolitical maneuvers, they face insurmountable barriers due to structural deficiencies in their factor endowments and a lack of downstream competitiveness. Conversely, China’s rise has bolstered the industrial autonomy and supply chain standing of the Global South, forging a new paradigm for the critical mineral supply chain.

• Strategic Implementation Limits of Western Supply Chain Restructuring

First, factor endowments severely constrain localization.The U.S. suffers from stagnant power generation capacity, protracted permitting processes, and a shortage of technical talent, leaving domestic mining and metallurgical projects sluggish. The EU faces an energy crisis and risks of deindustrialization, making the domestic replication of supply chains prohibitively expensive. Allies similarly face a deficit in mining talent; the case of the Lynas rare earth plant relocating processing back to Australia from Malaysia due to technical and cost dilemmas underscores the economic infeasibility of “decoupling and breaking chains.”

Second, geopolitical hurdles obstruct allied collaboration. The West attempts to redirect Central Asian mineral logistics; however, countries like Tajikistan still rely on China for processing. Alternative routes heading south through Afghanistan or west across the Caspian Sea and the South Caucasus lack economic and security viability. Conversely, the advancement of the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan (CKU) railway and the operationalization of the Chancay Port reinforce China’s mineral cooperation with regional states.

Third, capability deficiencies fail to deliver on strategic commitments. The West’s inadequate infrastructure and financing capabilities have rendered initiatives like “Build Back Better World” (B3W) largely ineffective. Even if completed, projects like the “Lobito Corridor” cannot substitute for China’s industrial presence and market absorption capacity in the region.

Fourth, restructuring inflicts negative externalities on mineral-producing nations. Unilateral U.S. actions, such as imposing tariffs on Canada, undermine allied synergy. Some mineral-rich countries that brought in the U.S. and other Western actors for the sake of “diversification” may experience slower industrial development and wastedresources due to the West’s lack of industrial capabilities or purely geopolitical motives. This stands in sharp contrast tothe developmental efficacy of China’s mutually beneficial cooperation model.

• Supply Chain Restructuring and the Rising Power Status of the Global South

The ascent of China’s comprehensive national power has broken the Western monopoly over high-tech industries and markets, offering the Global South superior options for cooperation. In the critical minerals sector, China has supported nations like Indonesia in developing localized processing capabilities—transforming Indonesia from a raw ore exporter into the world’s largest refined nickel producer, which has now begun venturing into the battery industry. This has significantly enhanced resource nations’ industrial autonomy and revenue sharing.

Concurrently, the influence of the Global South is rising comprehensively across all supply chain nodes:

(1) Processing: Countries like Indonesia and Zambia have established industrial parks and processing bases with Chinese assistance.

2) Downstream Manufacturing: Thailand has emerged as an electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing hub driven by Chinese investments, upgrading the ASEAN value chain.

3) Consumption: EV markets in Indonesia and South Africa are expanding rapidly, boosting the Global South’s market absorption capacity.

4) Pricing Power: The rising status of the Shanghai Futures Exchange, alongside BRICS initiatives to establish precious metals exchanges, is steering the global mineral pricing architecture toward a multipolar configuration.

• Geopolitical Return, Great Power Competition, and the Emergence of a New International Supply Chain

Western supply chain restructuring acts are reshaping trade flows, giving rise to a new critical mineral supply chain relatively independent of the West.

First, supply chain integration among emerging economies like China, Russia, and Brazil is deepening.United Company RUSAL and Norilsk Nickel have secured raw material supplies and integrated into the battery supply chain through equity cooperation and capacity transfers to China. Brazil and China collaborate deeply on permanent magnet motors, new energy vehicles, and niobium resource development, forging a mutually beneficial industrial relationship.

Second, investment and financing collaboration between China and the Global South is reshaping the capital landscape. Joint-venture plants between GEM and Vale in Indonesia, as well as a consortium of Chinese and Russian enterprises winning bids for Bolivian lithium projects, demonstrate the continuous deepening of mutual dependence within the Global South.

Third, China actively engages in tripartite cooperation with Western mining countries and corporations.Chinese corporate investments in Australian mining and metallurgical projects, alongside collaborations with firms like Glencore in Global South nations, blunt the allied synergy of US “de-Sinicization” efforts and construct new industrial dependencies. Concurrently, the contradiction between unilateral, protectionist U.S. policies and its reliance on allied strategies will prompt more nations to strengthen economic ties with China. This is poised to trigger a “domino effect,” ultimately further circumscribing U.S. leverage over the global critical mineral supply chain.

Conclusion

Geopolitical factors have deeply permeated international competition over critical minerals. As China counters Western technological sanctions with export controls and Global South nations steadily elevate their position in supply chains, a paradox emerges: by deliberately inflating the “China supply chain threat” narrative and constructing exclusive supply chains, the West has self-fulfilled its own supply security dilemmas.

During the “Trump 2.0” era, the United States is expected to intensify its containment of high-tech industries, continuing to apply securitized thinking and geopolitical competition logics to the realm of critical minerals. With the exception ofa few minerals like rare earths, China’s raw ore reserves and extraction output remain relatively limited compared to its smelting and processing capacities. The U.S. strategy of supporting domestic downstream industries through industrial policies while exerting geopolitical pressure on mineral-producing nations will inevitably threaten China’s downstream industrial advantages and security. Therefore, expanding and deepening industrial cooperation with mineral-producing countries is crucial to sustaining China’s downstream capacity and preserving room for industrial upgrading.

The Western-led Minerals Security Partnership (MSP) is actively providing financing to Global South mineral producers while promoting its environmental and social governance standards. Although this framework advancesgreen mining, it also seeks to leverage rule-based systems to obstruct cooperation with Chinese enterprises. In response, China should take proactive initiatives through sectoral and regional platforms to strengthen international collaboration with the Global South on institutional rules for critical minerals. Backed by its steadily growing industrial capabilities, China’s external mineral cooperation will play a greater role in shaping a more equitable global critical mineral industrial landscape—one that better serves the interests of the Global South.

About the Author

SUN Haiyong孙海泳：Dr. Sun is Senior Research Fellow of Institute for Public Policy and Innovation Studies/Center for American Studies of SIIS. Dr. Sun got his Ph.D from School of International Studies, Renmin University of China. He specializes in the study of high-tech competition in international relations and Chinese outward investment on infrastructure.

About the Publication

The Chinese version of the article was published by Foreign Affairs Review (《外交评论》). It is a Chinese academic journal on international politics, sponsored by the China Foreign Affairs University and overseen by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China. It was founded in 1984, delving into various significant theoretical and practical issues within the disciplines of “macro-international relations” and “macro-diplomacy”, with a focus on exploring Chinese diplomacy and related matters.

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Welcome to ChinaVoice, a new podcast series from the ChinaAffairsplus team. Hosted by , we will invite scholars and experts to discuss major international issues from great power relations and global governance to emerging security and diplomatic challenges. Through these conversations, we hope to share diverse perspectives on China’s foreign policy and the evolving international landscape.

Artificial intelligence is advancing at an extraordinary pace globally, and the core debate has shifted from who owns more powerful models and advanced chips to how to carry out effective global AI governance. This year’s World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) provides a key window to observe this issue, as the conference has gradually transformed from a technical and industrial event to a high-level international platform focusing on global AI governance, and made new progress in promoting the establishment of the World AI Cooperation Organization (WAICO).

What are the new changes of WAIC 2026? What is the positioning of WAICO, how should we understand the different international reactions to this initiative? How to evaluate the current advantages and bottlenecks of China’s AI development? How will AI competition between China and the United States evolve, and what is the space for practical cooperation between the two sides? In this episode of ChinaVoice, we are honored to invite Yao Xu, Associate Professor, Secretary-General of Center for Global AI from Fudan University, who has been deeply involved in related work, to analyze the transformation of WAIC, the development of WAICO, the current situation of China’s AI development, the prospect of China-US AI relations, and China’s contribution to global AI governance.

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World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) is gradually evolving from a technology- and industry-focused event into a more international platform connecting technological innovation with global AI governance.

From SUN Chenghao’s perspective, WAIC 2026 made this shift particularly visible through broader international participation, a stronger emphasis on governance, and the agreement-signing process related to the World AI Cooperation Organization, or WAICO. Yao Xu agreed that this reflects a longer-term evolution rather than a sudden change. He explained that WAIC initially focused largely on showcasing the development of Shanghai and China’s AI industry, but since around 2024 it has increasingly become a high-level platform bringing together governments, industry leaders, academics, and international organizations. He also stressed that WAICO should be understood more precisely as an initiative still in the process of institutional development, with the 2026 conference marking the signing of an intergovernmental agreement rather than the formal launch of the organization.

Sun Chenghao observed that international reactions to WAICO have been mixed. While many countries in the Global South appear interested in an additional platform for AI capacity building and governance, some observers have questioned whether China is attempting to build an alternative AI governance architecture. He suggested that this reflects a broader tendency in international politics for even global governance initiatives to be interpreted through the lens of geopolitical competition.

Yao Xu argued that such skepticism is understandable, but that the more important question is whether international institutions can actually provide the global public goods that developing countries need. Drawing on his engagement with Global South scholars and practitioners, he emphasized their demand for high-quality datasets, computing resources, technical expertise, training programs, and other forms of capacity building. He argued that WAICO’s significance will ultimately depend on whether it remains open and inclusive and whether it can provide practical assistance rather than become a closed geopolitical bloc.

About China’s AI capabilities, Sun argued that it should not be measured simply by comparing frontier models. While the rapid development of models such as Kimi K3 reflects China’s technological progress, he suggested that a country’s overall AI competitiveness also depends on semiconductors, computing infrastructure, energy, talent, applications, safety, and the ability of society to absorb technological change.

Yao agreed and cautioned against placing too much emphasis on individual “moments” such as a “DeepSeek moment” or “Kimi moment.” In his view, these breakthroughs are usually the visible outcome of much longer processes of technological accumulation. He identified China’s emerging AI ecosystem as one of its major strengths, particularly the increasingly close interaction among universities, research institutes, frontier laboratories, start-ups, and large technology companies. At the same time, he regarded advanced semiconductors and computing resources as China’s clearest structural weakness, noting that the United States still maintains a substantial advantage in chips, data-center capacity, and aggregate compute.

Sun placed infrastructure and social adaptation within the broader definition of national AI capacity, emphasizing that energy, data centers, supply chains, and the ability of society to absorb technological disruption are becoming increasingly important.

Yao added that China and the U.S. face somewhat different political and social environments in expanding AI infrastructure. He noted that public opposition to data centers has become more visible in the U.S. because of concerns over electricity consumption, water use, environmental pressure, and local infrastructure, whereas China may have greater capacity to coordinate large-scale infrastructure through national and local planning. At the same time, he stressed that China also faces serious social challenges from AI, particularly concerns about automation, employment displacement, autonomous driving, creative industries, and the rapid transformation of existing occupations. In his view, these are not uniquely Chinese problems but common challenges that all major economies will increasingly have to address.

On China–U.S. AI competition, Sun argued that the rivalry is increasingly shifting beyond individual models toward competition between entire technological ecosystems. Given that technological competition is likely to remain a persistent feature of China–U.S. relations, cooperation will need to coexist with competition rather than replace it.

Yao cautioned against describing this as a direct or symmetrical “battle.” He suggested that the two countries currently occupy different positions, with the United States still maintaining clear advantages in frontier models, advanced semiconductors, computing resources, cloud infrastructure, and global talent concentration, while China is catching up rapidly. He therefore described the relationship more as two runners at different stages of the race than as two equal competitors confronting one another across every dimension of AI.

Technological competition does not remove the need for cooperation on shared risks. Sun identified military applications of AI, AI–nuclear risks, misuse by non-state actors, critical infrastructure, and frontier AI safety as areas in which neither China nor the United States can fully manage the consequences alone.

Yao agreed and argued that emerging risks associated with advanced AI, especially in combination with nuclear technology, biotechnology, and other high-consequence scientific capabilities, could provide a practical foundation for bilateral cooperation. About the upcoming China–U.S. dialogue, Yao believed that it should treat AI safety itself as a global public good. Under this approach, China and the U.S. could cooperate in providing regulatory sandboxes, safety toolkits, evaluation mechanisms, technical assistance, and capacity-building programs to Global South countries. This would make safety governance more closely connected to development and reduce the risk that developing countries see AI safety rules simply as new barriers to technological participation.

At the same time, Sun argued that an official China–U.S. AI dialogue should pursue relatively modest and realistic objectives. It should not attempt to resolve the broader technological competition between the two countries, which would be unrealistic, but instead identify areas where both sides have a shared interest in preventing unintended outcomes. In his view, a realistic success would involve creating channels for risk reduction, practical cooperation, basic common understandings, and continued communication.

Yao broadly agreed but placed stronger emphasis on openness. He argued that the experience of both China and the U.S. shows that scientific progress benefits from cross-border exchange, talent mobility and interaction among researchers. He therefore urged both sides to keep genuinely sensitive competition within a limited range and prevent security concerns from overwhelming the broader relationship between their scientific and technological communities.

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Welcome to the 81st edition of our weekly newsletter! I am SUN Chenghao, a fellow with the Center for International Security and Strategy (CISS) at Tsinghua University, Council Member of The Chinese Association of American Studies and a visiting scholar at the Paul Tsai China Center of Yale Law School (fall 2024).

ChinAffairsplus shares Chinese academic articles focused on topics such as China’s foreign policy, China-U.S. relations, China-European relations, and more. This newsletter was co-founded by me and my research assistant, ZHANG Xueyu.

Through carefully selected Chinese academic articles, we aim to provide you with key insights into the issues that China’s academic and strategic communities are focused on. We will highlight why each article matters and the most important takeaways. Questions or criticisms may be addressed to sch0625@gmail.com

Today, we have selected an article written by Zhu Min, Gong Bing and Yang Siyao, who analyze Changes in U.S. Economic Policy Toward China Over the Past Three Decades and China’s Strategic Countermeasures.

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Summary

Over the past three decades, U.S. economic policy toward China has undergone a structural evolution from engagement and cooperation to competition and containment, and then to systemic suppression, forming a systematic policy framework against China with trade, finance, science and technology, and security as the core pillars. This system has further deepened since the beginning of Trump’s second term.

After returning to the White House, the Trump administration has introduced and frequently adjusted its policies toward China in the three core areas of trade, finance, and science and technology in a short period of time, with more explicit policy objectives, systematic suppression measures, and a significant increase in the cross-pillar policy integration, demonstrating a more evident intention to comprehensively promote the decoupling of the China-U.S. economies. During this period, high inflation, financial market risks, games among interest groups in the U.S., as well as China’s strong countermeasures have become important restrictive factors curbing the extremization of U.S. policies toward China. These constraints have continued to play a role in the second term of the Trump administration, rendering its China policy characterized by a firm strategic objective and wavering implementation path. In general, the direction of U.S. economic policy toward China in the Trump administration’s second term may be irreversible, yet its implementation pace and intensity are still subject to internal and external constraints, showing volatile and transactional features.

China should build a systematic, hierarchical and tradable response strategy in the three key areas of trade, finance, and science and technology. It should maintain strategic resolve while flexibly taking advantage of the fluctuating window of U.S. policies and optimize the mechanism of countermeasures and games while stabilizing growth, strengthening science and technology and promoting security as the main thread.

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Why It Matters

The transformation of U.S. economic policy toward China has not only reshaped bilateral relations between the two countries, but also profoundly influenced the global economic order, industrial and supply chain structures, and functioning of international governance systems. Compared with studies that focus on a single domain or short-term policy developments, this article adopts a long-term perspective, examining trade, finance, technology, and security within an integrated analytical framework, thereby capturing the overarching logic and internal coherence of U.S. economic policy toward China. For these reasons, the study not only contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the complexity of U.S. economic policy toward China but also provides meaningful practical insights for China in assessing future trends and refining its policy responses.

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Key Points

1. Evolution of the Concepts and Objectives of U.S. Economic Policy Toward China

• Over the past three decades, U.S. economic policy toward China has undergone a clear, phased evolution. During the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, the United States largely pursued a cooperation-oriented approach. The core strategy of “constructive engagement” aimed to integrate China more deeply into the U.S.-led global free trade system, cooperation remained the dominant theme of this period.

• During the Obama administration, as China’s economic scale expanded rapidly, the global financial crisis shook the U.S.-led international order, the United States began to systematically adjust its economic policy toward China. It increasingly viewed China as a potential challenger. As a result, U.S. policy gradually sought a new balance between cooperation and containment, while reinforcing a competitive orientation through strategic initiatives such as the “Pivot to Asia.”

• In the period of the Trump administration’s first term and the Biden administration, U.S. economic policy toward China further shifted from competition to containment and suppression, with the space for bilateral economic cooperation significantly reduced. Both identified China as the primary challenge to the United States in the economic, technological, and global governance domains, and steadily intensified pressure on China. Overall, the evolution of U.S. economic policy toward China reflects not short-term fluctuations, but a structural shift driven by changes in the balance of power between the two countries, transformations in the global political economy, and the reconfiguration of domestic political forces within the United States. Its underlying logic has moved from “shaping China through engagement” to “maintaining U.S. dominance through competition and containment,” exhibiting strong long-term continuity.

2. Evolution and Implementation of U.S. Policy Instruments Toward China

• Evolution of the Policy Framework and Toolkit: Over the past three decades, the United States has built a systematic framework around four core pillars—trade, finance, technology, and security. As U.S. policy shifted from cooperation to competition and containment, these instruments expanded in scope, variety, and intensity. At the same time, the boundaries between policy domains have become increasingly blurred, producing stronger cross-domain linkages.

  • In trade, U.S. policy has evolved from a dual approach of cooperation and threat to one dominated by unilateral measures. During the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, the United States promoted cooperation by supporting China’s accession to the World Trade Organization and establishing dialogue mechanisms, while employing tariffs and trade disputes as instruments of pressure. During the Trump administration’s first term and the Biden administration, trade policy became more instrumentalized and routinized, with tariffs and institutional tools widely deployed as part of a broader strategic competition framework.

  • In investment and finance, U.S. policy has shifted markedly from openness and cooperation to restriction and partial decoupling. Since Trump’s first term, however, the United States strengthened controls over cross-border capital flows, restricted Chinese firms’ access to financing, and sought to redirect capital flows. The Biden administration has largely continued this trajectory, further integrating financial policy with technology policy, making it an important tool of strategic competition.

  • In technology, U.S. policy has undergone a “leapfrog” transformation from fragmented controls to systematic, full-chain restrictions. The Trump administration institutionalized these controls, while the Biden administration has advanced “full-chain” restrictions and allied coordination, forming a systemic regime centered on key sectors such as semiconductors, while also reinforcing domestic technological capabilities through industrial policy.

  • In security, U.S. policy expanded from military security into broader economic domains, producing a pronounced trend of securitization. Since Trump’s first term, the United States has increasingly invoked “national security” to justify measures in trade, technology, and industrial chains, while the Biden administration further deepened the integration of security and economic policy.

• The Wavering Nature of U.S. Economic Policy Toward China: In the implementation of its economic policy toward China, the United States has consistently faced significant cost constraints and structural limitations. Over time, China and the United States have developed a high degree of interdependence in key areas such as trade, finance, science and technology, and knowledge exchange. It has imposed considerable economic and institutional costs on efforts to promote decoupling or pursue extreme suppression policies toward China. In practice, such policies may not only fuel domestic inflation and weaken employment and output, but also undermine corporate performance, capital market stability, and innovation capacity, thereby constituting a de facto “bottom-line constraint” on policy implementation.

• Moreover, the implementation of U.S. policy is shaped by a range of internal and external factors. Domestically, there is a clear divergence among interest groups. This internal contestation directly influences both the direction and intensity of policy. Externally, China’s countermeasures and changes in the global macroeconomic and financial environment also impose constraints by altering cost structures and expectations of policy outcomes.As a result, U.S. economic policy toward China exhibits a pronounced wavering implementation path. While its strategic objective—competition and containment as the dominant approach—has become increasingly clear, its implementation is frequently adjusted in response to domestic economic conditions and international developments.

3. Continuity and Development of U.S. Economic Policy Toward China in the Second Term of the Trump Administration

• Entering the second term of the Trump administration, U.S. economic policy toward China has further advanced the existing framework of containment and suppression, marking a new stage of systemic and comprehensive intensification. The United States has explicitly defined China as its core competitor, and embedded its China policy more closely within the “America First” strategy. Its core objectives focus on reducing dependence on China, narrowing the trade deficit, restricting bilateral investment, and containing China’s development in key frontier technologies.

• The second Trump administration has also upgraded the existing toolkit and emphasized cross-pillar instruments. In trade, policy has expanded beyond tariffs to include non-tariff barriers and rule-based constraints. In technology, the United States has expanded export controls, investment restrictions, corporate sanctions, and allied coordination. In finance, it has tightened restrictions on capital flows and Chinese firms’ access to financing.

• At the same time, U.S. economic policy toward China exhibits a pronounced trend of securitization, with trade, finance, and technology policies increasingly integrated under the logic of national security. Policy implementation remains subject to multiple constraints, including the need to control inflation, maintain employment and financial stability, and balance competing domestic interest groups. These constraints mean that, even as containment intensifies, U.S. economic policy toward China continues to display a degree of flexibility and room for adjustment.

4. Wavering and Volatility in the Implementation of U.S. Economic Policy Toward China in the Second Term of the Trump Administration

• In the early stage of Trump’s second term, U.S. economic policy toward China has shown clear wavering and volatility. Its trajectory can be characterized as “intense suppression—sharp fluctuation—gradual moderation.” In trade, the United States rapidly raised tariffs and expanded non-tariff barriers, but later lowered tariffs and delayed some measures under negotiation and macroeconomic pressures. In finance, policy tightened but remained more cautious than in trade and technology. In technology, export controls and corporate sanctions continued to escalate in semiconductors and artificial intelligence, while some measures were adjusted or suspended in response to negotiation dynamics or market pressures.

• The volatility of these policies is the result of multiple interacting factors. On the one hand, the second Trump administration has adopted a more aggressive policy stance toward China in terms of concepts and objectives. On the other hand, domestic inflationary pressures, financial market volatility, and losses to corporate interests have imposed significant constraints on policy implementation. Simultaneously, large multinational corporations and technology firms have exerted “corrective” pressure on the government through lobbying and policy intervention. In addition, China’s countermeasures, together with changes in the global macroeconomic and geopolitical environment, have further increased the costs of sustaining extreme policies, reinforcing the wavering implementation path of U.S. economic policy toward China.

Conclusion

Overall, Trump’s second term has further strengthened U.S. economic suppression of China, made decoupling more explicit, and deepened policy integration across trade, finance, and science and technology. Yet implementation remains constrained by inflation, financial stability concerns, domestic interest-group games, and China’s countermeasures. For China, the key is to maintain strategic resolve, use the fluctuating window in U.S. policy implementation, strengthen economic and industrial resilience, and refine its countermeasures, negotiation tools, and policy responses to secure greater strategic initiative.

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About the Authors

ZHU Min朱民: Senior Expert Committee Member, China Center for International Economic Exchanges; Former Deputy Managing Director, International Monetary Fund

GONG Bing巩冰: Associate Professor, School of International Political Economy, University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

YANG Siyao杨斯尧: Postdoctoral Fellow and Assistant Researcher, PBC School of Finance, Tsinghua University

About the Publication

The Chinese version of this article was published in The Chinese Journal of American Studies（《美国研究》）, which was founded in 1987 and is jointly sponsored by the Institute of American Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the Chinese Association for American Studies. Originally launched as a quarterly and published as a bimonthly since 2014, the journal features Chinese scholarship on the United States, including its politics, economy, foreign policy, military affairs, science and technology, and culture.

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Welcome to the 80th edition of our weekly newsletter! I am , a fellow with the Center for International Security and Strategy (CISS) at Tsinghua University, Council Member of The Chinese Association of American Studies and a visiting scholar at Yale Law School (fall 2024).

ChinAffairsplus shares Chinese academic articles focused on topics such as China’s foreign policy, China-U.S. relations, China-European relations, and more. This newsletter was co-founded by me and my research assistant, .

Through carefully selected Chinese academic articles, we aim to provide you with key insights into the issues that China’s academic and strategic communities are focused on. We will highlight why each article matters and the most important takeaways. Questions or criticisms may be addressed to sch0625@gmail.com

Today, we have selected an article written by Wang Fan and Wen Yinghui, which focuses on The Adjustments of US Foreign Policy in the Context of Strategic Retrenchment.

Summary

The United States’ adjustments in its foreign policy exhibit new logic and characteristics against the backdrop of overall strategic retrenchment and mark a turning-point significance amid the current international landscape. This round of US strategic retrenchment does not represent a simple return to isolationism; rather, under the dual pressures of domestic political and economic structural woes and a relative decline in international influence, it constitutes a strategic recalibration aimed at cutting hegemony maintenance costs, prioritizing core interests, and more effectively constraining strategic competitors.

The US strategic adjustment reflects a paradoxical unity of “retrenchment” and “control”: on one hand, the US seeks to curb overseas spending through selective intervention, promoting burden-sharing among allies, and reducing direct engagement in secondary regions. On the other hand, it intensifies targeted containment of emerging powers such as China by restructuring alliance networks, abusing non-military instruments of competition, and competing for dominance in emerging strategic frontiers.

Changes in the balance of power, domestic economic challenges, a slowdown in technological innovation, and reduced internal political constraints jointly constitute the four core driving forces of this round of US strategic retrenchment. This adjustment will not only undermine the liberal international order long dominated by the United States, but also exert multidimensional impacts on major-power strategic relations and regional power structures, thereby exacerbating the instability of the international order.

Why It Matters

As the United States places greater emphasis on coercive allied burden-sharing, cross-regional strategic resource reallocation, and sustained long-term competition with China, grasping the substantive connotation of “strategic retrenchment” has become essential to accurately assessing the direction of U.S. foreign policy.

We selected this article because it cautions against assuming that reduced commitments abroad necessarily signal a weaker international role or diminished competitive intent; they may instead reflect a change in how the United States seeks to preserve its advantages.

By situating retrenchment within the broader context of domestic political and economic constraints, shifting alliance relationships, and changes in the international order, the article helps explain why Washington may appear more restrained in some regions while becoming more concentrated and assertive in areas tied to its core strategic interests. This perspective also helps readers understand why Chinese scholars often view U.S. retrenchment not simply as a sign of moderation, but as a development with potentially far-reaching consequences for major-power relations, regional stability and international rules.

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Key Points

1. Manifestations of the Adjustment in U.S. Foreign Policy

(1) Reordering Geographic Priorities

The United States is not withdrawing comprehensively from international affairs, but selectively redistributing its constrained strategic resources across distinct geopolitical blocs. Homeland defence and the U.S. traditional sphere of influence in the Western Hemisphere have gained prominence, while the Indo-Pacific remains the central arena of great-power competition. In Europe, Washington seeks to make allies assume greater responsibility for their own security, but the Russia–Ukraine conflict and Europe’s limited defence capacity constrain any large-scale withdrawal. In the Middle East, the United States adopts a primary retrenchment strategy supplemented by tactical partial redeployment; it increasingly relies on precision limited military strikes, backed by regional proxy allies, and phased temporary troop surges to safeguard vital interests including energy supplies and maritime chokepoints, to prevent re-entering the costly quagmire of full-scale ground warfare.

(2) A Shift toward “Low-cost Competition”

The United States is scaling back costly large-scale direct ground military intervention and relying more heavily on alliance networks and non-military instruments of competition. On the one hand, it is promoting burden-sharing among allies by transferring more defence and regional security costs to European and Indo-Pacific partners. On the other hand, it is using minilateral arrangements such as AUKUS and the Quad to build flexible and exclusive networks around military affairs, technology, supply chains, and maritime security. Export controls, financial sanctions, technological standards, long-arm jurisdiction, and narrative shaping are also being used to intensify targeted containment of China.

(3) Expanding Competition in “New Strategic Frontiers”

The United States is extending great-power competition beyond traditional land and maritime spaces into critical sea lanes, the Arctic, and the deep sea. These domains matter not only for military deployment and strategic mobility, but also for access to critical resources, supply-chain security, and the formulation of future international rules. Washington adopts three sets of competitive measures to advance its layout: continuously intensifying regular military control over global sea lanes, comprehensively expanding military and resource-exploration presence across the Arctic, and advancing unilateral deep-sea mining unrestricted by the International Seabed Authority, in an attempt to pre-emptively draw new strategic advantage boundaries favorable to its own hegemony and restrictive to rival powers.

2. Main Drivers of US Strategic Retrenchment

(1) Shifts in the Balance of Power and an Imbalance in Strategic Commitments

The rise of China and other emerging powers has weakened America’s relative advantages in economic, technological, and military terms, while the long-term costs of maintaining a global base network and fighting overseas wars have placed severe pressure on US resources. Strategic contraction is therefore intended to reduce commitments in secondary areas and redirect limited resources toward core interests and principal strategic competitors.

(2) Domestic Economic and Industrial Difficulties

Federal debt, rising interest payments, manufacturing decline, and supply-chain vulnerabilities have constrained Washington’s capacity to invest in defence, research, and infrastructure. Reshoring, friend-shoring, and the restructuring of critical industrial chains have consequently become important components of US strategic adjustment.

(3) A Slowdown in Technological Innovation

Although the United States retains considerable technological strength, the growth of its research investment has slowed, while China has rapidly narrowed the gap in artificial intelligence, quantum technology, robotics, clean energy, and semiconductors. The article argues that technological restrictions alone cannot preserve US advantages over the long term and may instead damage American firms while accelerating Chinese indigenous innovation, making a broader strategic recalibration necessary.

(4) Reduced Domestic Political Constraints

The foreign-policy establishment that traditionally supported deep global engagement has lost influence, while officials favouring “America First,” sharper strategic prioritization, and competition with China have entered key positions. At the same time, a stronger bipartisan recognition that US grand strategy requires reprioritization has created a more favourable domestic political environment for strategic contraction.

3. International Impacts of US Strategic Adjustment

(1) The Liberal International Order is being Undermined

As the United States places greater emphasis on cost-benefit calculations and domestic interests, its willingness to provide international public goods, uphold multilateral rules, and assume global responsibilities is declining. This transformation generates two-tier shocks to the global system: on one hand, it continuously depletes U.S. global leadership credibility accumulated since World War II; on the other hand, it fuels the wide global proliferation of trade protectionism, unilateral power politics and zero-sum game mindsets, while impairing the operational effectiveness of multilateral cooperation institutions.

(2) Major-Power Strategic Relations and Regional Power Structures are being Reshaped

US contraction in some regions does not imply weaker competition with China. On the contrary, resource concentration may make China an even more clearly defined and enduring strategic competitor. Meanwhile, US demands that allies bear greater costs and serve American strategic objectives may weaken trust and cohesion within alliance networks, while encouraging allies to pursue greater strategic autonomy.

(3) Power Vacuums may intensify Regional Instability

As the United States reduces direct engagement in secondary regions, regional powers may compete to fill the resulting power vacuums, increasing security rivalry, conflict, and fragmentation. The article stresses that strategic contraction does not necessarily create stability and may instead amplify existing regional tensions.

(4) The Domesticization of Foreign Policy ncreases Uncertainty

US foreign policy is increasingly subordinated to domestic industry, electoral politics, and partisan competition, making it more transactional and reversible. Sharp policy changes across administrations not only damage US credibility but also add uncertainty to global governance and the international order.

Conclusion

The ongoing U.S. strategic retrenchment represents neither a return to isolationism nor a comprehensive decline in American global influence, but a reallocation of strategic objectives, regional priorities, and policy instruments under growing resource constraints. Its central logic is to reduce costly overseas commitments while preserving influence and containment over key regions and strategic competitors through selective intervention, burden-sharing among allies, non-military instruments of competition, and competition for dominance in new strategic frontiers.

Yet this strategic retrenchment remains constrained by domestic politics, congressional restrictions, continuing regional conflicts, and existing alliance commitments; even where the United States reduces its traditional military footprint, it can continue to exercise influence through alliance networks, technological dependence, infrastructure, and institutional advantages.

U.S. foreign policy adjustment is therefore unlikely to take the form of a sustained and comprehensive withdrawal, but will instead remain a limited, uneven, and long-term process of strategic recalibration that further accelerates great-power competition, alliance restructuring, and changes in the international order while adding uncertainty to the global strategic environment.

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About the Author

WANG Fan王帆：Wang Fan is Professor and Doctoral Supervisor at China Foreign Affairs University. He concurrently serves as Vice President of the China National Association for International Studies and Vice President of the Chinese Association of American Studies. He is a recipient of the State Council Special Government Allowance. His primary research interests include China–U.S. relations, Chinese foreign policy, international security, and the security strategies of major powers.

WEN Yinghui温盈晖：Wen Yinghui is a Ph.D candidate in the Institute of International Relations at China Foreign Affairs University.

About the publication

The Chinese version of this article was published in International Studies. （《国际问题研究》）International Studies is a comprehensive academic journal of international affairs under the supervision of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China and published by the China Institute of International Studies. Committed to serving China’s diplomacy, the journal integrates strategic, forward-looking, and policy-oriented perspectives and seeks to provide theoretical support for China’s diplomatic practice.

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Welcome to the special edition of China Scholar Insights!

Not long ago, I spent some time in the UK, visiting government agencies, think tanks, universities and media organizations to exchange views on AI safety and governance. One question came up repeatedly in my conversations with British colleagues: Will Chinese AI models eventually move away from open source and become closed?

The reasoning behind the question was intriguing. Some of my British interlocutors suggested that Chinese AI companies currently embrace open-source models partly because China still trails the United States at the technological frontier. If China eventually catches up with—or even surpasses—the U.S., they wondered, would Chinese companies have fewer incentives to remain open and instead follow a more closed path?

I found this question worth thinking about. Is China’s current embrace of open-source AI merely a temporary strategy for technological catch-up, or does it reflect deeper structural forces within China’s AI ecosystem? These conversations prompted Songruowen Ma, Songting Ding, and me to take a closer look at the issue and write this article.

The article was first published by the UK-based independent think tank Center for Dialogue and Global Affairs.

Questions, comments, or criticisms are welcome at sch0625@gmail.com.

In July, the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) opened on the banks of the Huangpu River in Shanghai. In his keynote speech, Chinese President Xi Jinping said that AI development should not be “a solo performance by a single country, but a symphony of international cooperation”, and urged countries to embrace “open source, openness, collaboration and sharing” in AI. His remarks once again brought the debate over AI openness and the future of open-weight models into the international spotlight.[1]

Chinese AI companies have increasingly embraced openness as a key part of their strategies, and in some areas have emerged as global leaders in open-weight AI. On 16 July 2026, Beijing-based startup Moonshot AI released Kimi K3, a 2.8 trillion-parameter model that it claimed to be the world’s largest open-weight AI system. At the time of writing, ranking data on the platform OpenRouter showed that the five most-used open AI models worldwide were all Chinese models.

During our recent research visits in the UK, policy analysts repeatedly asked us the same question: Will Chinese language models remain open-weight in the long run? To answer this question, we look at how the Chinese government views open-weight models, discuss what China (and its AI firms) gains and risks by keeping model weights open or closed, and argue that Beijing is likely to pursue a hybrid and tiered strategy rather than commit fully to either path.

The Chinese Government’s Stance on Open-weight AI Models

China has consistently supported open-weight AI as a way to encourage innovation, strengthen the AI ecosystem, and expand international cooperation.

Domestically, openness is treated as a way to broaden access to AI and accelerate its adoption and diffusion. In 2024, the Ministry of Science and Technology encouraged firms to open up industry-specific data, models and algorithms, and called on leading AI companies to help build more open AI ecosystems. Later that year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Ministry of Finance, People’s Bank of China and National Financial Regulatory Administration jointly issued an action plan that called on small and medium-sized enterprises to participate actively in open-weight projects and aimed to lower barriers to AI development and deployment. This emphasis continued in the 2026 “AI+Manufacturing” initiative, which set the goal of building a world-leading open-source ecosystem by 2027.

Internationally, the government increasingly presents openness as part of China’s broader agenda of global AI cooperation. At the 2025 WAIC, Premier Li Qiang said that “China would be more open in sharing open-source technologies and products”. The subsequent State Council guideline on the “AI+” initiative linked accessible AI technologies to international cooperation on computing power, data and talent, with particular emphasis on capacity-building in the Global South. The Chair’s Statement of the 2026 WAIC went further, describing openness as an important pathway towards inclusive AI development and calling for more open and internationally connected AI communities.

However, official language does not imply that every Chinese model should be open-weight, as it also emphasizes intellectual-property protection, security, responsible governance and companies’ freedom to choose their own development strategies. Taken together, Beijing appears to treat model openness as a strategic choice rather than an across-the-board principle, leaving room for both open-weight and closed models.

The Commercial Pressure and Risks of the Open-weight Strategy

That flexibility on openness may become important as keeping models open-weight grows more costly, with US-China competition pushing frontier models toward the trillion-parameter scale and the spread of AI agents sharply increasing model use.

The commercial strain has already become visible. Opening a model’s weight can expand its user base, attract developers and strengthen an ecosystem. Yet it is generally harder to capture recurring revenue from an open-weight model than from a proprietary service built around subscriptions and API fees. Moonshot illustrates the tension. Just three days after Kimi K3’s launch, the company temporarily paused new subscriptions as demand strained its available computing capacity, while prioritizing existing subscribers. DeepSeek has faced similar capacity constraints during periods of surging demand, at one point suspending API top-ups because of server-resource pressure.

When an official platform cannot absorb all of that demand, users can move to third-party deployments and service providers. The original model developer then bears much of the cost of R&D and ecosystem-building while some users and some of the commercial value they generate shift elsewhere. Wider availability also intensifies price competition, putting further pressure on margins.

Chinese companies are therefore beginning to experiment with ways of keeping models open-weight while trying to retain more of their commercial value. The Kimi K3 licence is one example. Commercial products or services built on the model must display the “Kimi K3” prominently once they exceed either 100 million monthly active users or US$20 million in monthly revenue. A separate provision applies to licensees or affiliates operating a Model-as-a-Service business: if aggregate revenue from that business exceeds US$20 million over any consecutive twelve-month period, a separate agreement with Moonshot is required before commercial use. Reuters reported on 7 August that Alibaba was planning a comparable revenue-sharing arrangement for major commercial users of its next open model, Qwen3.8-Max.10.

These moves suggest that “open-weight” no longer has to mean giving away most of the commercial upside. Chinese model developers are beginning to search for a new balance between broad ecosystem adoption and sustainable returns.

The second pressure concerns the allocation of rights and responsibilities. Once model weights have been released, however, access cannot simply be withdrawn in the same way that an online service can be switched off. Third parties can download the model, fine-tune it, alter its safeguards and deploy it in environments over which the original developer has little or no control.

Open-weight models are also more exposed to technical scrutiny: the availability of model weights makes it easier to investigate training data or identify signs that a model may have been distilled from another system. These practices can more readily spark disputes over model provenance, permissible reuse, ownership, and responsibility, with such issues becoming increasingly salient amid intensifying great-power AI competition.

Open-Weight as a Source of Competitive and Strategic Advantage

However, China is unlikely to follow the US model of moving broadly towards closed-weight AI.

One reason is that efficiency has become one of the clearest competitive advantages of China’s AI industry. Much of the strength of Chinese technology companies lies in compute efficiency, training engineering, inference cost, model compression, and software-hardware adaptation. This produces a different industrial logic from that of leading US frontier labs. While American companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic compete at the cutting edge of compute, advanced chips and proprietary API services, many Chinese developers have stronger incentives to differentiate themselves through lower cost, local deployability and the ability to adapt or further develop a model downstream.

This has made Chinese models particularly appealing in markets where concerns over data sovereignty and dependence on foreign technology are especially pronounced, including much of the Global South. Open or locally deployable models can reduce dependence on a single foreign provider, give users more control over where data is processed, and make it easier to adapt systems to local languages and use cases. These advantages have become an important route through which Chinese models attract international developers and users. For that reason alone, Chinese firms are unlikely to give up openness lightly.

There is also a broader political and diplomatic logic. China’s effort to build an open AI ecosystem fits closely with its blueprint on global governance, from the idea of a community with a shared future for humanity and the BRI to the principles of consultation, joint contribution and shared benefit, as well as the Global Development Initiative, Global Security Initiative, Global Civilization Initiative and Global Governance Initiative.

China describes itself as a provider of international public goods relating to AI. The future trajectory of China’s AI models therefore cannot be read through technology and commercial incentives alone. Openness is also part of a wider national strategy: it helps expand developer ecosystems and international adoption while reinforcing China’s preferred narrative of more inclusive access to AI.

From Open Weights to Real Access

Returning to the question we began with, the answer is unlikely to be a simple “yes” or “no” when it comes to model openness. Rather, China is likely to move towards a hybrid ecosystem in which open and closed models coexist. Small and mid-sized foundation models, many industry-specific models, and models designed to attract developers and expand application ecosystems will probably remain relatively open. By contrast, the most advanced models – those requiring the greatest R&D investment, posing the highest safety risks, or offering the strongest prospects for monetization – are more likely to be closed, released with a delay, distributed under restrictive licenses, or made available only via APIs. ByteDance already offers an early example of this tiered approach. It has released the weights of selected models such as Seed-OSS, while keeping its flagship models proprietary and providing access through consumer products such as Doubao and API services via Volcano Engine.

Such a tiered approach would not conflict with China’s broader commitment to making AI more widely accessible. For many countries, especially in the Global South, opening the weights of models with hundreds of billions or even trillions of parameters will offer limited practical benefit if they lack the computing power, data-center capacity and engineering resources needed to run them at scale. What matters more is access to capable models that can operate under tighter constraints on compute, electricity and network capacity, while still being adapted to local languages and applications.

This helps explain why Chinese AI companies are placing growing emphasis on model efficiency and what is called “intelligence density” (智能密度): the capability delivered for a given model size or level of compute. Based on the Intelligence Index vs. Cost per Intelligence Index Task test given by artificialanalysis.ai, DeepSeek-V4-Flash significantly outperforms all other models in terms of intelligence density. High intelligence density made DeepSeek-V4-Flash the most popular model on OpenRouter, highlighting the global demand for high intelligence density models.

From this perspective, China may have stronger incentives to keep highly capable, efficient mid-sized models open-weight while keeping the most expensive frontier models closed or more tightly controlled. This would allow Chinese firms to broaden international adoption without giving up the commercial returns and strategic value of their most advanced models.

[1] In this article, we primarily use the term “open-weight”refers to models whose trained parameters (or “weights”) are publicly released and available for users to download and run. This does not mean that the model’s training data, training code, or full technical documentation is also publicly available. The term is therefore narrower than “open-source AI.”

Songruowen Ma is a Research Associate at Center for Dialogue and Global Affairs and a DPhil Candidate at the University of Oxford.

is Fellow, Associate Professor, and Head of the US-Europe Program at the Center for International Security and Strategy (CISS) at Tsinghua University; Fellow at Center for Dialogue and Global Affairs.

Songting Ding is a Master Student at University of Tokyo.

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Welcome to the special edition of China Scholar Insights!

China Scholar Insights is a feature which aimed at providing you with the latest analysis on issues that Chinese scholars and strategic communities are focusing on. We will carefully select commentary articles and highlight key points. Questions or criticisms can be directed to sch0625@gmail.com

I am SUN Chenghao, a fellow with the Center for International Security and Strategy (CISS) at Tsinghua University. ChinAffairsplus is a newsletter that shares Chinese academic articles focused on topics such as China’s foreign policy, China-U.S. relations, China-European relations, and more. This newsletter was co-founded by me and my research assistant, ZHANG Xueyu.

The New China-EU Trade Consultation Mechanism

Background

On June 29, Chinese Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao and European Commissioner for Trade and Economic Security Maroš Šefčovič held the inaugural meeting of the China-EU Trade and Investment Consultations (TIC) in Brussels and issued a rare joint statement. The two sides agreed to formally establish a new consultation mechanism covering four working areas: trade and investment balancing, export controls, intellectual property rights, and WTO reform. According to the joint statement, China and the EU also agreed to “establish a joint monitoring mechanism to exchange relevant data, monitor trade flows and support technical work with a view to improving transparency, enhancing mutual trust and managing trade frictions.”

The mechanism arrives at a moment when China-EU trade is economically indispensable but increasingly vulnerable to political pressure. Eurostat data shows that the EU’s goods trade deficit with China reached €98 billion in the first quarter of 2026, the highest quarterly level since Q3 2022. In 2025, EU exports to China stood at €199.5 billion, while imports from China reached €559.5 billion, leaving a deficit of €360 billion. These figures have made the trade imbalance one of the most politically salient issues in the relationship. More importantly, the imbalance is increasingly interpreted in Brussels not simply as a trade problem, but as evidence of deeper concerns over industrial competitiveness, overcapacity and economic security.

The new mechanism sends an important signal that neither side wants economic disputes to spiral into a trade war. Šefčovič said the two sides had an ambitious timetable and hoped to achieve tangible results before October. For China, the mechanism offers a channel to address EU restrictive measures through negotiation. For Europe, it provides a way to manage domestic pressure over trade deficits while keeping dialogue with China open. Its significance, therefore, lies less in resolving individual disputes than in creating an institutional framework within which an increasingly contentious economic relationship can be managed.

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From Fragmented Disputes to Institutionalized Management

China-EU trade frictions have moved from occasional product disputes to a broader pattern of sectoralized confrontation. Over the past five years, disputes have spread across investment, electric vehicles, medical devices, solar procurement, critical minerals, food products, public procurement, cybersecurity, and industrial policy. Each case has followed its own legal procedure and political rhythm, but together they reveal a relationship increasingly governed by defensive instruments.

The danger of fragmented dispute management lies in its tendency to turn technical questions into tests of political resolve. As seen in the past years, electric vehicles are framed as the future of European manufacturing, rare earths as a matter of supply-chain security, solar and battery products as a risk of green industrial dependence. Once these cases enter public debate as symbols of strategic competition, technical compromise becomes harder, since governments must answer not only to firms and regulators, but also to public narratives about weakness and resilience. In other words, fragmentation does not merely multiply disputes; it raises the political cost of resolving each one.

The joint monitoring mechanism is therefore the most technically modest and politically valuable part of the new arrangement. Contemporary trade tensions are intensively data-sensitive. For example, a rise in Chinese exports may be read in Brussels as evidence of overcapacity, dumping, or state distortion, while Chinese analysis often points to weak European demand, high energy costs, supply-chain reorganisation, or European firms producing within Chinese manufacturing ecosystems. Shared data will help discipline disagreements by identifying the factual terrain. This common basis for discussing trade flows can help pull certain disputes back from political claims into technical diagnosis, which is easier to manage than generalized accusations.

The mechanism also reflects a recognition in Chinese policy discussions that Europe’s anxiety is partly structural. Some recent Chinese commentaries have described China-EU relations as characterized by “ice and fire”: restrictions and mistrust coexist with strong commercial interdependence and continued demand for cooperation. This framing captures the central contradiction of the relationship. Europe is worried about a new wave of Chinese industrial strength in sectors such as EVs, batteries, solar equipment, machinery, and digital manufacturing, yet these same sectors are also crucial to Europe’s decarbonization and industrial modernization. The mechanism is an attempt to manage that contradiction through procedure rather than escalation.

Rebalancing Through Expansion, With Broader Implications

One of the most consequential ideas emerging from the mechanism is that rebalancing should come through expansion. On July 2, MOFCOM spokesperson He Yadong noted that the two sides “had focused on promoting more balanced growth in bilateral trade rather than reducing trade to achieve balance,” with emphasis on cooperation in artificial intelligence, the green transition, services trade, and market access consultations. China has invited Šefčovič to visit China this autumn for the second ministerial meeting under the mechanism, and the two sides have agreed to hold one or two ministerial-level meetings each year.

This formulation matters because it reframes the trade imbalance as a problem of composition as much as volume. The EU’s goods deficit dominates the political debate, but the broader relationship contains areas where Europe retains considerable advantages. The EU continues to run a services surplus with China, amounting to €21.3 billion in 2025 according to the European Commission. A more balanced relationship could therefore emerge from expanding services trade, improving market access, and encouraging two-way investment instead of compressing goods flows alone.

The mechanism also fits a wider pattern in EU external economic governance. Brussels has long relied on institutionalised platforms to manage relations with major economic partners, such as the EU-US Trade and Technology Council, the EU-India Trade and Technology Council, and trade committees under its agreements with Japan and South Korea. Although these mechanisms differ substantially in purpose and political context, they reflect Brussels’ broader preference for embedding complex economic relationships in standing institutional channels. The China-EU mechanism is distinctive because it is designed less to coordinate policies than to prevent competitive economic policies from becoming unmanageable.

In addition, the focus on WTO reform gives the mechanism a broader multilateral relevance. The joint statement stresses the need to strengthen China-EU cooperation in the WTO and advance substantive progress on reform. This aligns with the EU’s own July 2026 submission of three WTO reform papers, as well as China’s interest in defending a rules-based trading system as stated in its 2026 Position Paper. At a time when unilateral tariffs, economic coercion, industrial subsidies, and weakened dispute settlement are eroding confidence in the global trading system, even limited China-EU cooperation on WTO reform gives the relationship a broader public value.

Challenges: Dialogue Without Suspension of Pressure

The mechanism enters a European political environment already moving on two tracks. Brussels has reopened a channel for negotiation with Beijing, while several member states are pressing the Commission to act more quickly against perceived trade distortions. The tension was visible at the June European Council discussion on “global macroeconomic imbalances.” According to the European Parliamentary Research Service, France proposed a tool similar to the US Section 301 mechanism, which would allow the EU to impose targeted tariffs or import quotas on countries judged to employ unfair trade practices. France also joined Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, and Lithuania in calling for tougher trade measures, while Germany, traditionally more cautious about restrictive action toward China, stated that the EU must protect itself from trade distortions. EU leaders ultimately tasked the Commission with taking a twofold approach: on the one hand pursuing dialogue with Beijing, on the other hand sharpening the EU’s trade-defence toolbox and considering further instruments. The result is a more complicated consensus: dialogue with China remains necessary, while the political threshold for using defensive trade instruments has clearly fallen.

This dual-track logic explains why the launch of the mechanism has not stopped the EU from expanding its economic-security and trade-defence toolkit. In July 2026 alone, the European Commission opened an anti-dumping proceeding concerning Chinese Pekin Duck imports, imposed definitive anti-dumping duties on Chinese passenger-car and light-lorry tyres, upgraded its import monitoring mechanism, opened a consultation on the overall evaluation of the Dual-Use Regulation, and imposed anti-dumping duties of 60 to 67.6 percent on Chinese polyamide yarns. These steps show that dialogue will proceed alongside pressure, and that the mechanism will operate in a policy environment where Brussels remains willing to use unilateral instruments.

European policy debates continue to favour a more assertive response to China’s industrial rise. Recent European analyses emphasize the widening trade deficit, the limits of existing trade-defense tools, and the need for faster responses to import surges and industrial overcapacity. This defensive mood reflects real pressure on European firms, workers, and governments.

From a Chinese perspective, one concern is that some of Europe’s competitiveness challenges may increasingly be attributed to Chinese competition, even though they also reflect domestic constraints such as high energy costs, fragmented capital markets, regulatory burdens and uneven innovation performance. China’s Ministry of Commerce has argued that China is “not the root cause” of Europe’s economic and trade problems, while Chinese policy commentary has pointed to high energy costs, policy volatility, and insufficient innovation momentum as deeper constraints on European competitiveness.

The autumn meeting will therefore provide an early test of whether the TIC can move from political signalling to practical problem-solving. Four indicators will be particularly important: whether the two sides can establish a credible data-sharing process; whether they can create early-warning procedures for sudden trade-flow changes; whether export-control communication becomes more predictable; and whether the exchanged market-access lists produce concrete outcomes.

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Conclusion

Chinese official accounts have highlighted a new characterization of China and the EU as “each other’s stable and balanced key trading partners”. Together with the joint statement’s emphasis on stabilizing the relationship and making it more balanced, this language signals an effort to establish a more constructive baseline for economic ties.

The mechanism will not remove the structural pressures behind China-EU trade tensions. Its value lies in making frictions more governable, more transparent, and less vulnerable to political escalation, while preserving the possibility that balance can be achieved through deeper cooperation. Against the backdrop of rising protectionism and unilateralism, the choice of institutionalized dialogue between China and Europe is itself a limited but important signal of stability.

is currently a Ph.D. candidate in International Relations at the School of Social Sciences, Tsinghua University, where her research focuses on science diplomacy, technology and international relations, and China’s foreign policy.

is a Senior Fellow and head of U.S.-EU program at Center for International Security and Strategy (CISS), Tsinghua University. He is a member of Munich Young Leaders with Munich Security Conference, visiting scholar at Yale Law School (2024) and fellow at Arms Control Negotiation Academy (2025-2026). His research interests include U.S. domestic and foreign policy, China-U.S. relations, transatlantic relations, AI and International security, etc.

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ChinAffairsplus is a newsletter that shares articles by Chinese academics on topics such as China’s foreign policy, China-U.S. relations, China-Europe relations, and more. This newsletter was co-founded by my research assistant, ZHANG Xueyu, and me.

Through carefully selected Chinese academic articles, we aim to provide you with key insights into the issues that China’s academic and strategic communities are focused on. We will highlight why each article matters and the most important takeaways. Questions and feedback can be addressed to sch0625@gmail.com

Today, we have selected an article written by Cai Cuihong and Yin Jiahui, which focuses on the Trump administration’s second-term reshaping of U.S. critical minerals policy.

Summary

The reconfiguration of critical mineral supply chains has become an important lever for both U.S. parties to revive manufacturing, safeguard national security, and intensify strategic competition with China. At present, the critical minerals issue is deeply intertwined with policy domains such as the environment, security, and diplomacy.

There are major differences between the policies of the Biden and Trump administrations on critical minerals. In its second term, the Trump administration has made the construction of “energy dominance” a core objective, loosening regulation, expanding domestic development, strengthening bilateral cooperation and reshaping multilateral mechanisms to reconfigure the U.S. critical mineral supply system.

This will intensify turbulence in global critical mineral supply chains, encourage the formation of resource blocs, and sharpen competition over technology and standards. However, due to the United States’ weak industrial foundation, high development costs and substantial obstacles to international cooperation, the results of Trump’s critical minerals policy will remain limited.

Why It Matters

Critical minerals are the “strategic grain” of modern technology, clean energy, and the defense industry. As demand grows across countries, critical minerals have become an important front in great-power strategic competition. At present, U.S. critical minerals policy is gradually shifting from a market-first approach to a security-first one and ensuring supply chain resilience while prevailing in competition with China has become a major policy objective.

China is both a major producer and consumer of critical minerals, and U.S. exclusionary supply-chain policies may reshape the global mineral resource landscape and threaten the development of China’s high-end manufacturing and new quality productive forces. Therefore, analyzing the Trump administration’s second-term critical minerals policy not only helps to grasp the logic of America’s new round of industrial policies and strategies, but also helps China better coordinate resource security, industrial security and external cooperation so that it can retain the initiative in an increasingly competitive global critical minerals landscape.

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Key Points

1. Drivers of Trump’s Second-Term Reconfiguration of U.S. Critical Minerals Policy

A change in the policy agenda. During the Biden administration, U.S. critical minerals policy was deeply tied to the green transition. Critical minerals were treated as a subtopic of clean energy and climate governance, mainly involving lithium batteries and new energy supply chains. Related legislation included the Inflation Reduction Act, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

Trump argued that Biden’s critical minerals policy raised energy prices and expanded fiscal spending. In addition, environmental review weakened the United States’ capacity for mineral development . As a result, early in his second term, Trump quickly overturned many of the Biden-era energy-transition measures and treated critical minerals as important resources for safeguarding America’s “energy dominance” and supply-chain security. In doing so, the Trump administration has bound fossil energy, geopolitical competition, and critical minerals together.

The two administrations differ clearly in their policy goals. The Biden administration treated critical minerals mainly as a supply-chain security issue and pursued “de-risking” in order to reduce dependence on China. The Trump administration has gone further by treating critical minerals as a tool of great-power geopolitical competition and emphasizing that the United States should achieve “dominance” in this field. This means that Trump seeks not only to reduce dependence on China but also to compress China’s room for influence in global resource politics.

In terms of cooperation pathways, Biden placed greater emphasis on bilateral and multilateral cooperation with allies and partner countries, hoping to build cooperative networks through mechanisms such as the Minerals Security Partnership and the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework. By contrast, the Trump administration prefers bilateral arrangements with a stronger transactional character. It tends to use tools such as market access, financing support, investment screening, tariffs, and even aid to push partner countries to make clearer policy commitments.

2. Progress in Trump’s Second-Term Reconfiguration of U.S. Critical Minerals Policy

Guided by “America First,” the Trump administration has sought to enhance domestic mining and processing capacity for critical minerals. At the very start of Trump’s second term, he declared a national energy emergency and elevated critical minerals to a new strategic level, placing them alongside fossil energy. The administration then created the National Energy Dominance Council and issued executive orders such as “Immediate Measures to Increase American Mineral Production,” simplifying approval procedures, expanding financing, removing environmental constraints, and promoting offshore mineral development. At the same time, the United States has shifted its policy focus toward a wider range of minerals such as copper and uranium, rather than remaining confined to the lithium-battery sector as it did under the Biden administration.

Bilateral cooperation has become more transactional, while multilateral cooperation has become more securitized. At the bilateral level, the Trump administration has consolidated cooperation with traditional partners such as Australia, Japan and Saudi Arabia. At the same time, it has brought Pakistan, Malaysia, Thailand and Central Asian countries into its critical minerals cooperation network, offering investment support and coordinating regulatory policies, supply guarantees, and pricing mechanisms.

The Trump administration has worked with these countries mainly through tools such as aid, sanctions, and reconstruction funds. At the multilateral level, it has deliberately weakened the Biden-era narrative of a “green supply chain” and instead used platforms such as the G7 and the Quad to advance its critical minerals agenda. As a result, the U.S. critical minerals agenda has become closely bound up with economic security, national defense security, and geopolitical confrontation.

3. Impacts of Trump’s Second-Term Reconfiguration of U.S. Critical Minerals Policy

Volatility in global critical mineral supply chains will intensify. Choosing “energy dominance” as its governing objective, the Trump administration is trying to expand capacity, restrict imports and restructure external cooperation within a short period of time. These measures have significantly increased market uncertainty and pushed up prices for copper, zinc, rare earths and other critical minerals. Once upstream prices fluctuate, the effects are quickly transmitted downstream, raising costs in industries such as electric vehicles, wind power equipment, and magnet manufacturing, while also increasing firms’ investment risks.

More importantly, the Trump administration is attempting to rewrite the original market-based global division of labor through executive orders and bilateral agreements, which could shift critical mineral trade from gradual adjustment to rupture-style restructuring. For many critical minerals, both China and the United States rely heavily on external supply, and their sources overlap to a high degree. If the United States pushes critical mineral supply chains in an exclusionary direction, it will further raise the geopolitical premium and push more countries into new economic security dilemmas.

Global resource governance and competition over technical standards will become more politicized. As the United States has shifted critical minerals from an economic issue to a strategic competition issue, the political coloring of global resource governance has deepened further, and the tendency toward smaller, more exclusive supply-chain circles has become more obvious. Through bilateral agreements and mechanisms such as the G7 and the Quad, the Trump administration has directly tied critical mineral supply-chain security to economic security and defense security. As a result, global resource governance is shifting from the logic of open markets to a bloc-based logic rooted in alliance cooperation.

At the same time, the Trump administration is seeking to keep technology-intensive segments such as processing, refining, testing, and certification within the United States and its partner system. It has actively supported R&D subsidies, fund investment, and the export of technical standards to reshape the global standards system and intensify competition in fields such as high-end smelting, materials applications, and rulemaking. These measures will also place greater pressure on China in industrial chains, technology chains, and international discursive influence.

4. Challenges to Trump’s Second-Term Reconfiguration of U.S. Critical Minerals Policy

The United States still has a weak industrial base. Long-term deindustrialization, the decline of mining, and inadequate supporting infrastructure remain persistent problems. Even if the United States emphasizes “rapid output expansion,” it will be difficult in the short term to make up for weaknesses in mine development, power transmission networks, rare earth separation, and high-end smelting. Moreover, many critical mineral projects take a long time to move from discovery to production, and the United States does not hold a clear advantage in reserves, extraction capacity, or processing capacity for some key minerals.

Developing critical minerals in the United States is costly and faces strong political resistance. Federal and state environmental regulations, environmental impact assessment procedures, and opposition from local communities and indigenous groups all slow project progress and increase financing uncertainty. Even if Trump relaxes regulations, it will be difficult to eliminate these obstacles in a short period of time.

The United States also faces considerable resistance in advancing critical minerals cooperation abroad. In some key processing technologies, the United States struggles to replicate capacity at scale, and partner countries may not be willing to accept exclusionary policy arrangements, let alone abandon their existing diversified cooperation networks or bear the risks created by frequent shifts in U.S. policy. Therefore, the actual effects of the Trump administration’s critical minerals policy are likely to fall short of its initial expectations.

Conclusion

In Trump’s second term, critical minerals have become a key hinge connecting industrial policy, energy strategy, national security, and great-power competition. By recasting the sector around “energy dominance,” Washington is seeking not merely to secure supply chains, but to reshape the global division of labor in mining, processing, and downstream manufacturing in ways that strengthen U.S. strategic leverage.

Yet, the harder the United States pushes to securitize and weaponize critical minerals, the more it risks destabilizing the market mechanisms that have long underpinned global resource allocation. Volatility, bloc formation, and standards rivalry may all intensify, but that does not guarantee U.S. success. Domestic bottlenecks, cost disadvantages, and partner resistance will continue to constrain implementation.

For China, the challenge is therefore long-term and structural rather than momentary. The key task is to strengthen whole-chain resilience at home while defending an open, stable, and non-exclusionary international resource order abroad. Strategic patience, technological upgrading, diversified cooperation, and proactive rule-shaping will be essential in navigating the next phase of global critical minerals competition.

About the Author

Cai Cuihong is Professor at the Center for American Studies, Fudan University, and a researcher at the Global AI Innovation Governance Center. Her research focuses on China-U.S. relations, information security strategy, cyberspace governance, and cyber politics in international relations.

Co-author Yin Jiahui is a PhD candidate at the School of International Relations and Public Affairs, Fudan University. Together, they work on U.S. strategy, industrial policy and China-U.S. strategic competition.

About the Publication

The Chinese version of this article was published in The Chinese Journal of American Studies (Meiguo Yanjiu, 《美国研究》), which was founded in 1987 and is jointly sponsored by the Institute of American Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the Chinese Association for American Studies. Originally launched as a quarterly and published as a bimonthly since 2014, the journal features Chinese scholarship on the United States, including its politics, economy, foreign policy, military affairs, science and technology, and culture.

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ChinAffairsplus is a newsletter that shares articles by Chinese academics on topics such as China’s foreign policy, China-U.S. relations, China-Europe relations, and more. This newsletter was co-founded by my research assistant, ZHANG Xueyu, and me. Through carefully selected Chinese academic articles, we aim to provide you with key insights into the issues that China’s academic and strategic communities are focused on. We will highlight why each article matters and the most important takeaways. Questions and feedback can be addressed to sch0625@gmail.com.

In this newsletter, we address concerns about China’s positions through a Q&A format, while also presenting key points of leading Chinese scholars’ commentaries. Through this series, we aim to provide policymakers, think tanks, and strategic communities overseas with access to Chinese scholars’ views, accompanied by curated academic perspectives that help readers better understand the considerations underlying China’s foreign policy choices.

Background

On July 17, the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference and High-Level Meeting on Global AI Governance opened in Shanghai. Chinese President Xi attended the opening ceremony and delivered a keynote address titled “Joining Hands to Build a Just and Equitable System For Global AI Governance.” The World AI Cooperation Organization was also established in Shanghai. What solutions does China propose for global AI governance, and how will these proposals be translated into practice? Against this broader backdrop, how does China view its competition with the United States in shaping the future of global AI governance? In this episode of Ask China, we bring together the perspectives of Chinese scholars to offer readers a closer look at these questions.

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The outcomes of the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) indicate that China has gradually developed a coherent approach that connects normative principles, institutional arrangements and practical cooperation. President Xi Jinping’s keynote address presented China’s proposal through four dimensions—development, security, civilization and governance. The establishment of the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization (WAICO) at the Conference further translated these principles into concrete actions.

From the development dimension, it regards governance as an enabler of technological progress rather than merely as a means of mitigating risks. The Chair’s Statement advocates an innovation ecosystem that is enterprise-led, market-driven, application-oriented, research-grounded and talent-based. It also calls for the promotion of the AI Plus model, the responsible development of open-source ecosystems, and the application of AI in science, education, agriculture, health and so forth. These commitments show that China does not place governance in opposition to innovation. Instead, it seeks to use appropriate rules, infrastructure, open-source cooperation and scenario-based applications to unleash the potential of AI, facilitate industrial upgrading and improve the accessibility of AI technologies and services.

From the security dimension, China is committed to a controllable path of AI. The Conference called for the establishment of laws and regulations, technological monitoring, risk-warning and emergency-response systems, while also advocating tiered and category-based management according to the characteristics and risk levels of different AI systems. Large language models should be equipped with necessary guardrails, while AI agents should operate within clearly defined decision-making authority and behavioral boundaries, supported by mechanisms for behavior tracing and risk alerts. The scope of governance extends from data security, personal information protection and algorithmic ethics to critical infrastructure and the malicious use of AI by terrorist, extremist and transnational criminal groups. At the same time, China opposes overstretching the concept of national security and using security concerns to justify technological blockades or decoupling. The objective is to ensure that AI remains a trusted tool for humanity and is always under human control without suppressing technological innovation.

From the civilization dimension, China promotes a culturally inclusive approach that places human dignity, social well-being and mutual learning between civilizations above technological efficiency alone. The Conference emphasized that AI development should respect differences in national histories, cultures, social systems and forms of civilization, rather than imposing a single cultural or ideological model on the world. It also called for systematic responses to the impact of AI on employment, including AI education, skills training, job creation and the protection of workers’ rights and dignity. China’s commitment to enable 30 countries to use MAZU, an AI-powered meteorological warning system, further transformed the principle of AI for good into a practical international public good serving disaster prevention, public safety and the protection of livelihoods.

From the governance dimension, a major institutional outcome of the Conference was the establishment of WAICO in Shanghai. The organization is intended to promote policy dialogue, technical cooperation, governance coordination and capacity building, with particular attention to the needs of Global South countries. China also announced that, over the next five years, it would provide developing countries with 5,000 opportunities in AI training and seminar programs and establish international AI application cooperation centers with major regional organizations. These measures show that China also seeks to strengthen the capacity of developing countries to innovate, apply and govern AI, thereby bridging the AI and digital divides.

For many countries across the Global South, the question is no longer whether to adopt artificial intelligence, but how to do so without becoming dependent on a single technology ecosystem. As AI capabilities become increasingly concentrated in a handful of countries and companies, governments in Asia, Africa and Latin America are looking for partnerships that strengthen domestic capabilities rather than lock them into proprietary platforms. The 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) presented China’s answer to this demand: a collaboration model that prioritises capacity building, open ecosystems and multilateral governance over technology dependence.

While advanced economies tend to focus on frontier innovation, AI safety and regulation, many developing countries remain constrained by an emerging “intelligence divide”. Computing power, foundation models and high-end AI talent remain heavily concentrated in a small number of countries and leading technology firms, leaving many Global South countries at a structural disadvantage. Representatives from developing countries consistently raised the same concern: they wanted greater opportunities to participate in the AI revolution, but feared that unequal access to infrastructure, talent and data would create a new form of global inequality. From this perspective, AI governance is not only about managing risks, it must also ensure that more countries can develop and use AI on their own terms.

WAIC therefore framed international cooperation less as technology transfer than as capability building. For instance, China pledged to provide 5,000 AI training places for developing countries and to establish International AI Application Cooperation Centres serving regional organisations including ASEAN, the African Union, the Arab League, CELAC, BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. Beyond training, cooperation extends to joint research, governance exchanges and long-term technical support. In this model, universities and research institutions become long-term partners in knowledge production and talent cultivation rather than simply channels for technology transfer.

Another feature of WAIC’s collaboration model is its emphasis on open and adaptable AI ecosystems instead of exclusive platforms. Throughout the conference, Chinese companies showcased open-source foundation models alongside lightweight AI applications designed for deployment in resource-constrained environments. Visitors from Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America showed particular interest in the low-cost weather early-warning systems, rural digital education platforms and compact industrial AI solutions that require relatively limited computing infrastructure. These demonstrations reflected that future cooperation aims to help countries build their own AI ecosystems.

WAIC also sought to redefine AI governance as an enabler of development. During the conference, 29 countries signed the agreement establishing the World AI Cooperation Organisation (WAICO) in Shanghai. Rather than allowing governance rules to be determined primarily by technologically advanced countries, these new institutions aim to expand developing countries’ participation in setting standards, building regulatory capacity and shaping the future architecture of global AI governance.

Taken together, these initiatives suggest that instead of promoting closed technology platforms, WAIC seeks to promote the conditions for technological development itself: skilled talent, institutional capacity, open-source ecosystems, local adaptation and multilateral governance. Whether this model can be implemented at scale remains to be seen. But for many Global South countries seeking greater technological autonomy without technological isolation, WAIC offered a vision of AI cooperation that is alternative to both technological dependence and geopolitical alignment.

Yes—but only if WAICO continues to uphold the United Nations as the main channel for global AI governance and positions itself as a complement to, and a connector within, the existing global governance architecture, rather than as a parallel system created outside it. Whether a new international mechanism contributes to governance fragmentation depends less on who initiated it than on whether it can effectively align itself with existing international institutions. WAICO’s founding agreement affirms the purposes and principles of the UN Charter; its purpose is to strengthen international AI cooperation within the broader UN-centered framework.

At the same time, WAICO addresses a long-standing weakness in global AI governance: insufficient representation. Existing international rules are often shaped primarily by a small number of technologically advanced countries, while developing countries have limited opportunities to participate. This creates an imbalance between the production of rules and the representation of interests. WAICO’s founding members span Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Europe. By following the principle of extensive consultation, joint contribution, and shared benefits, it expands opportunities for Global South countries to participate in rulemaking and capacity building, helping move AI governance from an “exclusive club” toward an open platform for all countries to participate, strengthening the representation and voice of Global South countries in AI governance.

More importantly, WAICO seeks to address another major weakness in the current system: the gap between principles and action. The international community does not lack broad principles concerning AI ethics, safety and development. What it lacks are durable mechanisms that can translate those principles into sustained cooperation and tangible international public goods. Through the AI Capacity-Building Action Plan for Good and for All, WAICO can promote capacity building through professional training, joint application centers and technological cooperation, thereby integrating governance rules with development cooperation. Hu Yi describes this function through three important transitions: “turning consensus on principles into coordination mechanisms, technological capabilities into public goods, and development needs into governance issues.”

To turn principles such as “AI for Good,” “inclusive development,” and “multilateralism” into international governance mechanisms that countries can monitor, assess, and implement, the international community needs to build a coherent institutional chain from shared values to practical action.

First, states should translate broad principles into common standards and concrete requirements. Within multilateral frameworks such as the United Nations, states should build consensus around the core principles of AI governance. They should define “AI for Good” through clear requirements concerning safety, effective human oversight, transparency and explainability, fairness and non-discrimination, and accountability. International institutions and technical bodies should also develop common standards for model training, data governance, safety assessment, and the allocation of responsibility.

Second, regulators should adopt a risk-based and adaptive approach to monitoring and assessment. Because AI systems vary significantly in their purposes and potential risks, regulators should tailor governance requirements to different risk levels and application contexts. They can apply relatively flexible rules to lower-risk applications while requiring high-risk applications to meet stricter testing, certification, accountability, and withdrawal requirements. Regulators should also move beyond one-time, pre-deployment reviews. Through a recurring process of monitoring, assessment, adjustment, and regulatory revision, they can update standards and regulatory measures in response to technological developments and real-world impacts.

Third, international institutions, governments, companies, and social actors should share responsibility for implementation. At the international level, the United Nations and other multilateral institutions should coordinate different governance arrangements and promote cooperation on AI safety standards, assessment methods, and certification procedures. At the national level, governments should incorporate these standards into laws and regulations, clarify the responsibilities of developers, platforms, and users, and establish testing, certification, market-access, and withdrawal requirements. Companies should take responsibility for managing the risks associated with the technologies they develop and deploy, while civil society, academic institutions, and other stakeholders should provide oversight and feedback.

Fourth, the international community should strengthen capacity building to advance inclusive development. Many countries in the Global South still lack sufficient capacity to develop and govern AI. International cooperation should therefore do more than establish common rules; it should also help developing countries implement them. International AI capacity-building centers, global capacity-development networks, training and exchange programs, and the provision of global public goods can strengthen these countries’ technological capabilities, risk-identification capacity, and governance institutions while narrowing the global AI divide.

Over the past year, global AI governance has been characterized by two parallel trends: the rapid acceleration of technological innovation alongside rising governance risks, and intensifying strategic competition alongside expanding international cooperation. AI infrastructure, computing power, frontier foundation models, and high-end talent remain concentrated in a small number of countries and leading technology firms, leaving many developing countries facing a widening “AI divide.” At the same time, significant differences remain over AI regulation, data governance, and technical standards, while a broadly accepted global governance framework has yet to emerge.

Against this backdrop, the United States has continued to frame AI primarily through the lens of strategic competition. On the one hand, it has strengthened export controls, investment restrictions, semiconductor regulations, and other technology-related legislation to constrain China’s technological advancement. On the other hand, it has sought to build an AI ecosystem centered on the U.S. technology stack and allied partners in order to preserve its leadership in both technological innovation and global rule-making. In contrast, this year’s World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) placed greater emphasis on AI governance, global technological risks, and inclusive development. Rather than viewing AI through a zero-sum geopolitical lens, the conference approached AI as a global public good and highlighted the need for international cooperation. This reflects China’s broader understanding of long-term China-U.S. AI competition.

First, China believes that long-term AI competition should not evolve into uncontrolled technological confrontation. Escalating rivalry could increase the risks of AI safety failures, fuel an AI-driven arms race, fragment the global technology ecosystem, and ultimately force third countries to choose between competing technological systems, thereby undermining global innovation.

Second, China views AI competition as extending beyond technological breakthroughs alone. Competition is not simply about achieving marginal advantages in frontier models or computing power, but also about building resilient innovation ecosystems, strengthening governance capacity, and promoting responsible development. In this sense, governance capability itself constitutes an important dimension of national AI competitiveness. China argues that countries able to promote more open, inclusive, and responsible AI governance—and uphold the principle of AI for Good—will possess greater long-term strategic influence.

Third, China recognizes that strategic competition with the United States is likely to remain a long-term reality. While China does not regard confrontation as its preferred choice, it acknowledges the need to respond to sustained U.S. competitive pressure by strengthening its own technological capabilities and maintaining long-term strategic resilience.

The priorities highlighted at this year’s WAIC illustrate how China intends to prepare for this long-term competition. The first priority is to further strengthen indigenous innovation. China remains confident about its progress in large language models, industrial applications, and AI ecosystem development, while recognizing that gaps remain with the world’s leading frontier models, particularly in fundamental research and original innovation. Strengthening basic research and core technologies therefore remains a strategic priority.

The second priority is to expand international partnerships. China continues to advocate openness and inclusiveness by deepening cooperation with developing countries and other international partners in areas such as infrastructure, talent development, and capacity building. This reflects both China’s aspiration to contribute to global AI governance and its effort to prevent further fragmentation of the global AI ecosystem.

The third priority is to strengthen talent development and long-term innovation capacity. Beyond cultivating more AI specialists, China emphasizes developing a workforce capable of effectively using AI tools while retaining uniquely human capabilities, including independent thinking, creativity, and lifelong learning. Ultimately, China sees long-term AI competitiveness as depending not only on technological advances themselves, but also on the quality of human capital and the capacity to harness technology responsibly.

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Welcome to ChinaVoice, a new podcast series from the ChinaAffairsplus team.

Hosted by , we will invite scholars and experts to discuss major international issues from great power relations and global governance to emerging security and diplomatic challenges. Through these conversations, we hope to share diverse perspectives on China’s foreign policy and the evolving international landscape.

The recently concluded Ankara Summit may not have been the most dramatic NATO summit in recent years, but it could well prove to be the one that most clearly reflects the Alliance’s evolving nature. Previous summits largely revolved around questions such as whether the war in Ukraine would reinvigorate NATO, when Ukraine might join the Alliance, and whether President Trump would weaken the United States’ security commitments to Europe. By contrast, the Ankara Summit confronted a more fundamental and practical question: how NATO will continue to function as the United States expects Europe to shoulder greater responsibility while the European security environment continues to deteriorate.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte described this transformation as “NATO 3.0.” At its core, the concept envisions a rebalancing of security responsibilities within the Alliance, with European allies and Canada increasing defense spending, expanding defense industrial production, and assuming a greater share of collective defense.

To explore the implications of NATO 3.0 and what this latest summit reveals about the Alliance’s future trajectory, we are delighted to welcome Professor Yanan Song of SOAS University of London. In this dialogue, we discuss the meaning and defining features of NATO 3.0, assess its prospects and potential challenges, and examine the strategic choices that are likely to confront Europe as it navigates a rapidly evolving transatlantic security landscape.

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Experts in Today’s Dialogue:

Key Points:

Ankala Summit and the NATO’s Current Operational State

Prof. SONG positions the 2025 Ankara Summit not as a dramatic turning point for NATO, but as an important step in NATO’s long-running evolution. She defines its core character as strategic rebalancing: the 32-member bloc is adjusting internal responsibility allocation to adapt to a shifting global strategic landscape, while preserving cross-alliance unity amid evident internal political differences.

The summit delivers dual-layer outcomes: in the short term, it locks in immediate political reassurances including reaffirmation of Article 5 collective defense commitments and sustained collective support for Ukraine to solidify alliance cohesion. In the long term, it formally kickstarts the long-debated gradual transformation of NATO’s internal division of labor, rather than marking the end of that decades-long policy discussion. Notably, a clear implementation gap persists between the summit’s political pledges and tangible execution: adjustments to defense capacity building, cross-national industrial alignment and domestic political consensus take years of continuous investment to deliver, and cannot be measured only by public headline announcements.

NATO 3.0 and Redefinition of Tranatlantic Responsibility Division

Two experts agree that NATO 3.0 does not signal a weakoned alliance or U.S. withdrawal from European security, but instead refers to an attempt to build a far more sustainable transatlantic security architecture via balanced responsibility sharing. Europe will take primary charge of core conventional deterrence against Russia, military readiness improvement, cross-national defense industrial capacity building and sustained follow-up support for Ukraine, to free up U.S. resources for its long-term strategic priority of Indo-Pacific competition. And the U.S. will remain the irreplaceable core provider of nuclear deterrence, global intelligence sharing, strategic airlift, theater missile defense and unified alliance command and control systems for the foreseeable future, capabilities that cannot be easily transferred to European allies. For the Europe, although there is a growing recognition that it needs to take a greater responsibility for its own security, its defense capacity building still face many chanllenges. Increased defense budgets do not automatically translate to actual military capability, due to fragmented European defense industry and long production lead times for key equipment.

The two discussants also point out that people often overemphasize Trump’s personal role in pushing Europe to take more security responsibilities, and tend to ignore the broader underlying strategic trends. Prof. SONG notes the root of this adjustment lies in consensus in the U.S. over the past decade to devote more attention and resource to the strategic competition with China, which is an inevitable structural shift of US grand strategy rather than a reflection of a single president’s personal personality.

Future Trajectory of NATO and Transatlantic Relations

The two speakers confirmed that the transatlantic defense relationship has entered a more complex new phase, where cooperation and competition coexist as the new normal, rather than a binary choice between the two. While the two sides will remain close security allies, they are also becoming competitors in certain areas of defnese, technology and industry policy.

Looking ahead, NATO will gradually evolve into a more balanced, more Europe-centered but still fundamentally transatlantic alliance. Issue linkage, ad-hoc coalitions of willing allies and expanded loyalty tests covering broader strategic domains beyond traditional defense will become increasingly common features, as reaching full consensus across 32 members on every single agenda item grows progressively difficult.

At the end of this episode, Prof. SUN raises a question about China, asking how the new division of labor between the US and Europe may shape Europe’s future China policies. Prof. SONG argues that Europe will maintain close coordination with the U.S. on security and critical technology issues, but retain independent operational flexibility in its bilateral economic relations with China, rather than carrying out full alignment with Washington’s policy stances.

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ChinAffairsplus is a newsletter that shares articles by Chinese academics on topics such as China’s foreign policy, China-U.S. relations, China-Europe relations, and more. This newsletter was co-founded by my research assistant, ZHANG Xueyu, and me.

Through carefully selected Chinese academic articles, we aim to provide you with key insights into the issues that China’s academic and strategic communities are focused on. We will highlight why each article matters and the most important takeaways. Questions and feedback can be addressed to sch0625@gmail.com

Today, we have selected an article written by ZHANG Shuyan and CHEN Zhimin The Rise of “Sovereign AI” in the Global South and China’s Cooperative Responses on how China’s pursuit of sovereign artificial intelligence has become closely tied to its broader vision for the Global South, technological autonomy, and a more inclusive global governance order.

Summary

“Sovereign AI” refers to the governance of Artificial Intelligence (AI) led by sovereign states: domestically, it relies on the “supremacy” of sovereignty to strike a balance between industrial development and security risks; externally, it leverages the “independence” of sovereignty to pursue strategic autonomy and international influence. The theoretical implication of this concept derives from the technological characteristics of AI. The rapid iteration and inherent uncontrollable nature of AI compels states to assert their agency in technology governance. The broad, general-purpose nature of AI requires state powers to coordinate efforts across multiple security domains. The cross-border mobility of technological factors of AI necessitates that “sovereign AI” pursue strategic autonomy while remaining open.

To counter the monopolization of technical standards and governance rules, “sovereign AI” must assert its voice in international rulemaking, thereby upholding the value of diversity in the global order. As a natural member of the Global South, China adopts a cooperative response towards “sovereign AI,” featuring a spirit of cooperation based on equality and mutual benefit, a capacity-building model integrating open-source strategies with localized deployment, and a solidarity approach to enhance global AI governance engagement.

Why It Matters

The article conceptualizes “Sovereign AI” as a strategic choice through which states seek to shape the development and governance of artificial intelligence according to their own national priorities. Rather than viewing AI governance solely through the lenses of regulation or technological competition, it argues that sovereign AI has increasingly become a strategy adopted by countries in the Global South to strengthen technological autonomy, safeguard national security, and expand their voice in global AI governance.

Against this backdrop, the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) provides an important practical context through which the article’s arguments can be understood. At the opening ceremony, President Xi stated that artificial intelligence “should not be the solo performance of one country, but a symphony of global cooperation.” This vision reflects China’s long-standing emphasis on AI for good, openness and inclusiveness, and the belief that AI development should contribute to more equitable global development.

More importantly, China announced a series of concrete initiatives aimed at strengthening AI capacity in developing countries, including providing 5,000 AI training opportunities over the next five years, establishing AI application cooperation centers with organizations such as ASEAN, the African Union, the Arab League, CELAC, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and BRICS, and expanding AI-enabled meteorological early-warning systems to thirty countries. These initiatives suggest that China’s understanding of sovereign AI extends beyond technological self-reliance to include capacity building and the diffusion of technological capabilities across the Global South.

The establishment of the World AI Cooperation Organization (WAICO) on 16 July 2026 further illustrates how this vision is being translated into institutional practice. Created through an intergovernmental agreement signed by twenty-nine founding member states, WAICO represents one of the first international organizations dedicated specifically to AI cooperation and governance. By emphasizing consultation, shared development, human-centered governance, and compliance with the purposes of the UN Charter, the organization seeks to provide a new multilateral platform through which developing countries can participate more actively in shaping international AI governance. In this sense, WAICO is significant not simply because it creates another international institution, but because it offers the Global South an additional institutional channel through which the goals of sovereign AI—greater technological autonomy, stronger governance capacity, and enhanced international representation—may be pursued collectively rather than individually.

Viewed from this perspective, the article’s analysis of China’s cooperative approach to sovereign AI is particularly timely. Recent developments at WAIC and the creation of WAICO do not simply demonstrate China’s growing role in AI governance; they illustrate a broader attempt to combine technology empowerment with institution building as complementary pathways for strengthening the agency of the Global South in global AI governance.

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Key Points

1. The Conceptual Logic of Sovereign AI

Existing scholarship often focuses on AI sovereignty, a normative concept emphasizing a state’s supreme authority over AI systems and data flows within its jurisdiction. By contrast, Sovereign AI is a policy-oriented concept centered on how states build the technological, industrial, and institutional capacities needed to achieve strategic autonomy in AI. Whereas AI sovereignty concerns a state’s right to govern, Sovereign AI concerns its ability to act. The article adopts the latter framework because it is more practical, better captures the interaction between AI and national security, and provides a broader lens for analyzing both domestic capacity-building and international cooperation in pursuit of technological autonomy.

• The Return of the State in AI Security Governance

Sovereign AI reflects a renewed emphasis on the state as the ultimate guarantor of security. Drawing on theories of sovereignty from Jean Bodin to Carl Schmitt, the concept argues that AI’s rapid evolution, opaque decision-making, and security risks are creating governance gaps akin to modern “states of exception.” As powerful AI systems and technology firms challenge traditional regulatory authority, governments are reasserting control over innovation, risk management, and public order. Sovereign AI thus extends earlier debates over cyber and digital sovereignty into the age of artificial intelligence.

• Sovereign AI as a Comprehensive Security Framework

Because AI is a general-purpose technology, its implications extend across every dimension of national security. In military affairs, autonomous weapons and AI-enabled intelligence reshape deterrence and warfare. Economically, AI may reconfigure global value chains and deepen technological inequalities. Socially and politically, generative AI amplifies misinformation, cyber threats, and governance challenges. Culturally, algorithmic bias and foreign data influence can affect national identity and societal values. Sovereign AI therefore seeks to coordinate responses across military, economic, social, political, and cultural domains rather than treat AI as a narrow technical issue.

• Sovereign AI and Open Strategic Autonomy

Despite its emphasis on autonomy, Sovereign AI does not imply technological self-sufficiency. AI development depends on globally distributed data, computing power, talent, capital, and infrastructure. As a result, states must balance domestic capacity-building with international cooperation. The goal is not ownership of every technological resource, but control over the ability to develop, deploy, and govern AI within a country’s jurisdiction. In this sense, Sovereign AI redefines technological sovereignty as open strategic autonomy within an interconnected global ecosystem.

• Sovereign AI and the Quest for International Voice

Sovereign AI also requires influence over global rulemaking. As AI standards and governance frameworks are increasingly shaped by a handful of states and technology giants, countries seek greater representation in setting international norms. The concept emphasizes translating national development priorities and governance experiences into global standards while respecting diverse political and institutional models. Ultimately, Sovereign AI combines domestic capability with international participation, advocating a more pluralistic and inclusive global AI order (as presented in the Table below) rather than a single universal model of governance.

2. Building Sovereign AI in the Global South

The United States and Europe are advancing their own Sovereign AI strategies to strengthen technological autonomy and reduce external dependence. Washington emphasizes state-backed innovation and industrial investment, while Brussels integrates AI into its broader digital sovereignty agenda. Together, these efforts reflect a broader global shift towards treating AI as a strategic national capability rather than merely a commercial technology.

• Constraints on Sovereign AI in the Global South

Global South countries face significant structural disadvantages in AI development. Data shortages, weak research ecosystems, limited computing capacity, and underfunded digital infrastructure constrain indigenous innovation. At the same time, these states remain vulnerable to cyberattacks, deepfakes, data breaches, and emerging AI-related security risks. Their dependence on foreign cloud services, advanced chips, and frontier models deepens technological reliance, while Western dominance in AI standards and governance institutions limits their influence over rulemaking.

• The Governance Gap

Beyond technological dependence, the Global South remains underrepresented in global AI governance. Many developing countries are excluded from key forums, while existing frameworks largely reflect Northern priorities. Issues central to the Global South—technology transfer, digital inclusion, data sovereignty, and equitable development—receive limited attention, reinforcing asymmetries in both rulemaking and implementation.

• Domestic Sovereignty: State Leadership and Regulation

The article argues that Sovereign AI begins with strengthening the state’s domestic role. Governments should formulate national AI strategies, coordinate investment in data, computing power, talent, and infrastructure, and establish regulatory frameworks capable of balancing innovation with security. Regardless of whether countries adopt “hard-law” or “soft-law” approaches, states must retain ultimate authority over AI governance.

• External Sovereignty: Strategic Autonomy and Voice

Externally, Sovereign AI requires reducing technological dependence without embracing isolationism. Global South countries should pursue open strategic autonomy through international cooperation, South–South partnerships, and local capacity-building. At the global level, they must coordinate efforts to increase representation, shape international norms, and secure a stronger voice in the future governance of AI.

3. The Practice of Sovereign AI in the Global South

Referencing Brazil and Indonesia as case studies, the article examines how Global South countries pursue Sovereign AI through state-led strategies, institutional design, and capacity-building. Their experiences highlight common challenges and emerging pathways for technological autonomy, while offering insights into broader patterns of AI governance and South–South cooperation.

• Brazil: State-Led Planning and Global South Rulemaking

Brazil has emerged as a leading AI hub in Latin America, ranking fifteenth globally in AI research in 2022. Its Sovereign AI strategy rests on state-led planning, legal regulation, and selective openness. The 2021 Brazilian AI Strategy set priorities in education, labor, innovation, industry, public security, and social applications, while the 2024–2028 AI Investment Plan pledged $4 billion for infrastructure, business innovation, public services, and regulation. Brazil has also strengthened data protection through the LGPD and advanced an AI bill based on risk classification. Internationally, it uses cooperation with China, BRICS, the G20, and the OECD framework to expand technical capacity while defending Global South representation in AI governance.

• Indonesia: Digital Sovereignty through Infrastructure and Regulation

Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s largest economy, is rapidly building AI capacity while confronting deepfakes, cyberattacks, data leaks, digital inequality, and a projected shortage of nine million digital workers by 2030. Its 2020–2045 National AI Strategy identifies health, education, food security, government reform, and smart cities as priorities, while the 2025 AI white paper proposes a Sovereign AI Fund. Indonesia has passed a personal data protection law, issued AI ethics guidelines, and begun drafting binding AI regulation. Cooperation with Chinese firms such as Huawei, Alibaba Cloud, and Tencent Cloud supports infrastructure and cloud capacity, while data-localization rules seek to preserve sovereignty.

• Shared Pattern: Open Autonomy for the Global South

Brazil and Indonesia show that Sovereign AI in the Global South is neither isolationist nor purely market driven. Both rely on strong state planning, regulatory reform, foreign technology, and local capacity-building. Their common goal is to open domestic markets without surrendering control, and to turn national AI development into a platform for greater Global South representation on the global stage.

4. China’s International Cooperation Strategy for Sovereign AI

Unlike many Global South countries focused on technological catch-up, China combines concerns over supply-chain security and AI governance with significant technological strengths in patents, research, models, and computing infrastructure. The article argues that China’s Sovereign AI strategy increasingly centers on helping other Global South countries build AI capacity, while promoting greater collective influence and representation in global AI governance. China is thus positioned not only as a practitioner of Sovereign AI, but also as a key partner in advancing it across the Global South.

• A Reciprocate Vision for the Global South

China’s AI cooperation model emphasizes respect for national sovereignty and non-zero-sum security. Unlike approaches that export regulatory standards, Beijing advocates allowing countries to choose their own development and governance paths. Through the 2023 Global AI Governance Initiative and the Global Security Initiative, China presents AI cooperation as a vehicle for shared development rather than technological containment or geopolitical rivalry.

• Empowering Sovereign AI through Capacity Building

China increasingly frames itself as a capacity builder for the Global South. The 2024 UN resolution on AI capacity-building and China’s AI Capacity-Building Action Plan promote infrastructure, talent development, data security, and digital connectivity. Open-source models such as DeepSeek, Qwen, ERNIE, and Pangu lower barriers to entry, while initiatives like the China–ASEAN AI Innovation Cooperation Center provide tailored solutions that combine technology transfer with local strategic autonomy.

• Expanding Global South Representation in AI Governance

China seeks to strengthen developing countries’ voice in global AI governance through platforms such as the Digital Silk Road, BRICS, and the United Nations. It advocates greater representation, equal participation in rulemaking, and opposition to governance fragmentation. Through BRICS declarations and UN-led initiatives, Beijing positions itself as a champion of a more inclusive, multipolar, and development-oriented AI governance order.

Conclusion

This article examines the theoretical logic and practical meaning of “sovereign artificial intelligence,” arguing that it reflects a broader return of the state in global AI governance. As a general-purpose technology marked by cross-border flows of data, capital, talent, and infrastructure, AI has reshaped the tasks of national security and expanded its spatial boundaries. Sovereign AI therefore entails both strategic coordination across policy domains and a delicate balance between openness and autonomy. Its ultimate value lies not in technological closure, but in respecting diverse national interests and development models, thereby advancing a more equal and inclusive international order.

For countries of the Global South, sovereign AI is a strategic response to asymmetric power structures and widening technological divides. The cases of Brazil and Indonesia show that this approach can enhance domestic technological capacity. Internally, both states have used strategic planning and regulation to manage the tension between innovation and oversight. Externally, they have pursued international cooperation to strengthen local industries and amplify developing countries’ voices in global rulemaking.

China’s practice further advances this agenda. By combining open-source strategies, capacity-building, customized technical assistance, and cooperation through the United Nations, the Digital Silk Road, and BRICS, China offers a model of AI cooperation that moves beyond geopolitical rivalry and strengthens the Global South’s role in shaping the future of AI governance.

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About the Author

ZHANG Shuyan(张书言): ZHANG Shuyan is a Ph.D candidate in Diplomacy at the School of International Relations and Public Affairs, Fudan University. He is research assistant at the Center for Global AI Innovative Governance Global Artificial Intelligence Innovation Governance Center and Rongchang Scholar. His research interests include AI technological power, global AI governance and sovereign AI, etc.

CHEN Zhimin(陈志敏): CHEN Zhimin is the Vice President of Fudan University and professor at the School of International Relations and Public Affairs, Fudan University. He is a Chang Jiang Scholars Program Distinguished Professor by the Ministry of Education, a Jean Monnet Chair Professor by the European Union, and a Leading Talent of the National “Ten Thousand Talents Program” in Philosophy and Social Sciences. He serves as the Chairman of the International Politics Sub-committee of the China Higher Education Association, the Deputy Director of the Teaching Guidance Committee for Political Science Majors under the Ministry of Education, and the Vice Chairman of the Shanghai Federation of Social Science Associations. His research interests include international relations theory, diplomatic studies, and EU studies.

About the Publication

The Chinese version of the article was published by International Security Studies (《国际安全研究》), a leading Chinese academic journal in the field of international security and strategic studies. Published as a bi-monthly journal, International Security Studies is dedicated to strengthening strategic thinking, examining international security issues, and safeguarding national interests. The journal promotes academic research and scholarly exchange while serving as a platform for theoretical innovation and policy-relevant analysis. Covering a wide range of topics in security, diplomacy, and international affairs, it has earned broad recognition among both scholars and practitioners for its academic rigor and practical relevance.

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