BEIJING — China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday strongly rejected a proposal by the head of U.S. artificial intelligence firm Anthropic to restrict China's technological development, warning that such measures undermine global cooperation. The diplomatic pushback comes ahead of a highly anticipated meeting on September 24, where U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping are scheduled to discuss international AI governance alongside other pressing bilateral issues.
The dispute was triggered by a detailed essay published Saturday by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei. In the piece, Amodei asserted that a "Chinese lead in AI would pose grave danger for the United States and the world." To maintain the American technological advantage, he urged the U.S. government to sustain strict controls on the export of advanced AI semiconductors and semiconductor manufacturing equipment to China. Amodei also warned that a swarm of autonomous AI "agents" could potentially take control of the internet within six to 12 months unless global developers agree to slow their pace. He conceded, however, that "global pacing will require cooperation with China, the autocratic country with by far the most advanced AI capabilities."
Responding to Amodei's arguments at a regular press briefing on Monday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun urged global unity rather than division. "Fearmongering, confrontation and vicious competition will only disrupt the process of global AI governance which serves no one's interest," Guo stated, emphasizing that all nations should collaborate on developing the technology safely.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump on Sunday dismissed suggestions that his administration should intervene to decelerate domestic AI research. Trump asserted that the United States currently maintains a lead over China in the sector, declaring that "whoever wins AI, wins."
Within China, state-run media and security officials have also weighed in on the geopolitical tech race. An editorial published Sunday by the state-run Global Times newspaper characterized Amodei’s essay as a thinly veiled strategy to suppress China's rise. The newspaper argued that while the essay claims to address global safety, it is "packed with containment provisions targeting China and is, in essence, a 'Cold War playbook' for the AI sector." Simultaneously, Beijing is seeking to position itself as a leader in AI governance. Xi Jinping has advocated for a joint AI governance framework among Global South nations and promoted China as a champion of an open-source AI community. Additionally, the head of China's Ministry of State Security recently wrote an article calling for "accelerating the establishment of a system for preventing and managing AI security risks."
The rhetorical clash follows a joint cybersecurity advisory issued last week by the FBI, the National Security Agency, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. The U.S. agencies accused Chinese AI developers of launching "aggressive, malicious" campaigns to copy or "distill" capabilities from cutting-edge American models, specifically naming Anthropic’s Claude and OpenAI’s GPT. China's Commerce Ministry quickly rejected those allegations as groundless, arguing that "distillation" is a standard technique utilized by AI companies worldwide and accusing the U.S. of attempting to establish a "monopoly of the AI industry."
The escalating tension highlights a fundamental contradiction in the U.S.-China tech relationship. Lizzi C. Lee, a fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis, noted that both Washington and Beijing are determined to prevent the other from establishing a "tech chokepoint" over them. Lee pointed out the logical inconsistency in the American approach: "So from Beijing's perspective, there is an obvious question: if the U.S. wants China to cooperate on frontier safety while also restricting its access to frontier compute, what exactly does that cooperation look like?"
Visitors walk past a display depicting artificial intelligence and a human hand at the China International Supply Chain Expo in Beijing on Monday, June 22, 2026. Ng Han Guan/AP hide caption
