China Isn’t Buying Silicon Valley’s Call for an AI Slowdown | WIREDSkip to main contentTHE WIRED APP IS HEREDOWNLOAD NOW »MenuWIREDSECURITYPOLITICSTHE BIG STORYBUSINESSSCIENCECULTUREREVIEWSMenuWIREDAccountAccountNewslettersSecurityPoliticsThe Big StoryBusinessScienceCultureReviewsChevronMoreExpandThe Big InterviewMagazineEventsWIRED InsiderWIRED ConsultingNewslettersPodcastsVideoLivestreamsWIRED StoreSearchSearchLouise MatsakisBusinessSep 16, 2026 5:30 AMChina Isn’t Buying Silicon Valley’s Call for an AI SlowdownThe US and China agree that advanced AI poses serious risks. But Beijing is deeply skeptical of a deal that prioritizes keeping US companies ahead.Photograph: Huang Jingwen/Getty ImagesCommentLoaderSave StorySave this storyCommentLoaderSave StorySave this storyFor years, many of the most powerful people in Silicon Valley have argued that the US is locked in an AI arms race with China, and that the consequences of losing would be disastrous. But over the past week, those same executives have started emphasizing a different message. AI has the potential to become so dangerous, tech leaders say, that the two countries urgently need to work together to slow the race down.“Global pacing will require cooperation with China, the autocratic country with by far the most advanced AI capabilities,” Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei wrote in a blog post published Saturday titled “We Must Pace the Frontier.”China’s government and AI companies have made it clear that they’re deeply skeptical of Amodei’s proposal, but not because they want to keep blindly racing ahead or don’t believe the technology poses serious risks. The problem the Chinese government and Chinese AI companies see is far simpler. They think they’re being offered a bad deal.“The AI safety community in China is growing and shares many of the same concerns that American labs do,” says Kevin Xu, founder of the technology hedge fund Interconnected Capital and a former White House staffer under President Barack Obama. “The gulf lies between an Anthropic-led vision that would only subjugate and restrict China first to maximize leverage before talking. Meanwhile, China would only talk if it’s being treated from a position of equals.”Amodei wrote that a “key part” of the slowdown strategy should be ensuring that the US and other democracies maintain “as large as possible” a lead in AI development over autocracies like China. To do that, he urged the US to take steps including cracking down on chip smuggling and preventing unauthorized model distillation by Chinese companies.“His essay specifically says the pacing of AI is conditional to increasing the lead over China," says Alvin Wang Graylin, a senior fellow Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis and a digital fellow at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI, “which makes the proposal feel inauthentic to Chinese readers.”Amodei went on to make what might seem like a heroic leap in logic: He argued that weakening China’s AI industry would somehow give the US more leverage and make “an agreement more likely in the future.” How, exactly, that is supposed to entice Beijing to come to the negotiating table is left unexplained. (To Amodei’s credit, he later admitted in a television interview that he has “no idea how to negotiate with China.”)The government officials, AI researchers, and other prominent commentators in China who responded to Amodei haven’t argued that AI poses no risks. But many of them clearly resent the idea that their country should simultaneously be treated as an essential governance partner and a competitor that needs to be constrained.When asked about Amodei’s blog post on Monday at a press conference, Guo Jiakun, a spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, didn’t mince words: He described the proposal as “fear-mongering, confrontation, and vicious competition” that would only hamper global AI cooperation efforts. The next day, the ministry also stressed that “China puts equal emphasis on development and security in terms of AI.”The mixed comments are reflective of another reason that Beijing may be less receptive to the Anthropic CEO’s warnings than other audiences. Unlike many of the loudest voices in Silicon Valley, China’s leaders are not primarily concerned about so-called existential risks from AI, such as the possibility that a rogue agent could kill everyone on Earth. Like in many other policy areas, Beijing’s prevailing anxiety is that AI could disrupt domestic social stability or threaten the Chinese Communist Party’s grip on power.“Beijing finds it difficult to take these calls at face value partly because it’s skeptical of the possibility of achieving AGI and doubtful of the narrative that AI poses extreme risks to humanity,” says Michelle Nie, a visiting fellow at the Center for a New American Security focused on national security and artificial intelligence. “Although Beijing is starting to recognize loss-of-control risks, the risk that Beijing seems most worried about is the threat AI could pose to CCP rule.”In a recent essay, China’s minister of state security Chen Yixin warned that AI could fuel political disinformation, cyberattacks, espionage, social unrest, and new military threats. He spent far less time on the kinds of doomsday scenarios that frequently preoccupy people at US frontier AI labs.“Chinese policymakers tend to read US companies’ calls for AI safety as instrumental,” says Nie. “They believe that US companies are seeking to inflate their own value ahead of potential IPOs or to slow down their competitors, which are primarily Chinese companies at this point.”That skepticism is also shared by many people who work in China’s AI industry, which has broadly focused on releasing lower-cost, open-weight models. In a widely shared essay published on Sunday, a researcher at DeepSeek said he believes AI could move human society to one of two extremes. In the first, powerful AI is broadly available and raises living standards. In the second, a handful of tech companies control the most advanced systems and the resources that come with them, making it even harder for everyone else to catch up.“That is why I still believe the most advanced intelligence should be made available to everyone in an open and inexpensive way,” the DeepSeek engineer wrote. “I do not trust Anthropic or OpenAI to do that. And I especially do not want Anthropic to control the most advanced artificial intelligence or AGI.”None of this means that US-China cooperation on AI safety is doomed. Preliminary negotiations between the two countries are reportedly already underway ahead of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s planned visit to Washington later this month to meet with US President Donald Trump.There are plenty of reasons to be hopeful that these discussions will result in some progress, even though it may be incremental. Both governments have expressed worries about some of the same things, including cybersecurity threats, the misuse of powerful models, and the possibility that increasingly capable AI systems could behave in unexpected ways.“There are people who genuinely care about AI safety on both sides, and there’s a possibility they could engage in good-faith discussion in narrowly scoped issues,” says Nie. What might move the needle most, she says, is designing a credible way for each country to verify that the other is abiding by its commitments.Still, others worry that rhetoric from Amodei and other US tech leaders about weakening China could erode the fragile trust that diplomatic talks depend on. Kristy Loke, a research fellow at the AI safety nonprofit MATS Research, says that Amodei’s missive may ultimately backfire. “Dario is undermining one of the few available levers for reducing the very risks he professes to take seriously,” she says.CommentsBack to topJoin the discussionCommentsBack to topTriangleYou Might Also LikeIn your inbox: WIRED's most ambitious, future-defining storiesAI slop backlash is actually having an impactBig Story: The cop who took on FlockThe rise of the 1am job interviewWatch: I stole a car by hacking this hidden deviceLouise Matsakis is a senior business editor at WIRED. She was previously deputy news editor at Semafor, a senior editor at Rest of World, and a staff writer at WIRED. An investigation she cowrote on the Chinese fast-fashion giant Shein won the 2022 Society of Publishers in Asia award for ... Read MoreSenior Business EditorXTopicsChinaAI safetyAnthropicOpenAIartificial intelligenceRead MoreAI Leaders Are Calling for a Slowdown. 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When you look back in 10, 20, even 50 years, WIRED will be the publication that led the story of the present, mapped the people, products, and ideas defining it, and explained how those forces forged the future. WIRED: For Future Reference.More From WIREDSubscribeNewslettersLivestreamsTravelFAQContact UsWIRED StaffWIRED EducationEditorial StandardsArchiveRSSSite MapAccessibility HelpReviews and GuidesReviewsBuying GuidesStreaming GuidesCouponsAdvertiseManage AccountJobsPress CenterCondé Nast StoreUser AgreementPrivacy PolicyYour California Privacy Rights© 2026 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. 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The discussion surrounding the pace of artificial intelligence development between the United States and China highlights a deep divergence in priorities and trust regarding global AI governance. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei proposed a slowdown in the AI race, advocating for increased cooperation with China, the nation possessing the most advanced AI capabilities, based on the premise that global pacing necessitates international collaboration. However, the Chinese government and AI entities expressed significant skepticism toward this proposal, viewing it as fear-mongering, confrontation, and vicious competition rather than a genuine safety measure.

The rationale for this skepticism stems from differing anxieties. While US leaders emphasized potential existential risks, Chinese policymakers are primarily concerned with how AI might disrupt domestic social stability or threaten the authority of the Chinese Communist Party. As Michelle Nie noted, Beijing’s principal anxiety is less about catastrophic outcomes and more about the potential for AI to undermine CCP rule. Furthermore, Chinese officials perceive US calls for AI safety as instrumental, suggesting that the underlying motivation is to inflate the value of American AI entities or to strategically slow down the advancement of Chinese competitors.

This dynamic suggests a fundamental disagreement over the framework of international negotiation. Amodei’s suggestion that the slowdown must prioritize maintaining a lead over autocracies like China clashed with the view held by many Chinese commentators who felt that China deserved to be treated as an equal partner, rather than simultaneously being constrained and competing against. This tension is further illuminated by internal views within the Chinese AI community, which often prioritize the open and inexpensive availability of the most advanced intelligence, and express distrust toward entities like Anthropic or OpenAI controlling the trajectory of advanced artificial intelligence or AGI.

Despite these ideological discrepancies, there are tangible grounds for future engagement. Both sides share concerns regarding cybersecurity threats, the misuse of powerful models, and the potential for advanced AI systems to exhibit unpredictable behavior. Preliminary negotiations are reportedly already ongoing in advance of planned high-level meetings, offering a pathway for incremental progress. However, the success of these discussions hinges on establishing a credible mechanism for verification and mutual commitment. Concerns remain that rhetoric aimed at weakening China could erode the fragile trust necessary for effective diplomatic dialogue. Ultimately, the path forward requires navigating the complex interplay between national security interests, technological competition, and differing philosophical approaches to regulating powerful emerging technologies.