With U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi holding talks ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to the United States in September, China's state-run media directly criticized Washington's tech blockade against China, likening the U.S. artificial intelligence (AI) strategy to a "nuclear weapon" and China's AI strategy to "nuclear energy." Ahead of the first official U.S.-China AI dialogue in September, China is defining the AI race as a framework of "openness versus blockade" and urging the United States to pursue AI openness and cooperation.
The Global Times, affiliated with the People's Daily, the Chinese Communist Party's official newspaper, argued in an editorial on the night of the 22nd titled "Nuclear energy or nuclear weapon: What is the essence of the U.S.-China AI competition?" that the United States and China fundamentally differ in how they view AI.
The editorial pointed out that the United States sees cutting-edge AI as a strategic asset that must be monopolized like a "nuclear weapon" and as a means of hegemonic competition. The editorial said, "The United States believes advanced AI will bring overwhelming military, economic, and information superiority," adding, "This mindset has led to export controls on advanced AI semiconductors, restrictions on access to AI models, and wariness toward open source."
By contrast, it emphasized, China views AI as "nuclear energy" that should be widely utilized while managing risks. Defining AI as "a public good that humanity should share and a tool for common prosperity," the editorial argued that instead of blocking technology, the world should manage it together through international standards, technology sharing, and safety regulation. It went on to say that China positions itself as a "provider of public goods" in AI, citing as a representative example the open-source strategy of Chinese large language models (LLMs) such as Moonshot AI's "Kimi K3." The editorial said, "This is not because the strategic value of technology is unknown, but because the more developers use and improve it, the more people can benefit."
The editorial also claimed that U.S. technology restrictions on China have backfired, assessing that "America's technological barriers have not stopped China, and the United States itself has fallen into a dilemma—worried that opening up technology will allow China to overtake it, and worried that continuing a blockade will isolate it in the international community."
The editorial came as the United States and China are pushing for their first "AI talks" in September. According to Reuters, the two sides plan to discuss the safety of cutting-edge AI models, their military applications, cyber threats, and governance. The United States is making the potential infringement of U.S. AI model intellectual property (IP) by Chinese AI models and the issue of technology leakage key agenda items, while China, emphasizing AI norms and technological cooperation, is at the same time labeling U.S. export controls on advanced semiconductors and AI regulations as a "technology blockade."
The previous day, Minister Rubio, after meeting with Director Wang in Manila, Philippines, told reporters that they had "discussed many things" to ensure President Xi's visit to the United States can proceed successfully, and said it is important for the United States and China to find areas where cooperation is possible while protecting national interests and to manage the relationship so that differences between the two countries do not spiral out of control.