Beijing Pushes Back on AI Curb Call

China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday pushed back against a call from the head of Anthropic for the United States to curb China's artificial intelligence capabilities — a call issued as he argued for a global slowdown on AI development. The exchange landed days before U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping are expected to discuss AI governance, among other topics, at a meeting planned for Sept. 24. What had been a policy essay from a leading AI executive has now become a public diplomatic back-and-forth between Washington and Beijing.

A CEO's Essay Draws Fire

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published a lengthy essay on Saturday warning that a "Chinese lead in AI would pose grave danger for the United States and the world." In it, he called for continuing restrictions on sales of cutting-edge AI chips and chipmaking equipment to China in order to keep the U.S.'s AI edge.

China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded to a question about Amodei's essay by saying that all parties should work together on AI. Spokesperson Guo Jiakun, speaking at a regular press conference on Monday, rejected the framing of the debate.

"Fearmongering, confrontation and vicious competition will only disrupt the process of global AI governance which serves no one's interest," spokesperson Guo Jiakun said at a regular press conference on Monday.

— Guo Jiakun, spokesperson for China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs

On Sunday, President Donald Trump downplayed calls for his administration to step in to slow down AI development, saying that the U.S. was leading China on AI and that "whoever wins AI, wins."

An Agent Warning Inside the Essay

Beyond the chip restrictions, Amodei's essay also predicted that a swarm of AI "agents" could be able to take over the internet in six to 12 months unless researchers agree to slow down. He said that "global pacing will require cooperation with China, the autocratic country with by far the most advanced AI capabilities."

The two governments are already set to meet on the topic. Trump and Xi are expected to discuss AI governance at a summit planned for late September, with Sept. 24 as the date set for their meeting.

Where China's AI Models Stand

Chinese companies have developed powerful AI models that are often cheaper to use than advanced models from U.S.-based companies, even as by some measures, they are just as capable. That capability gap — or lack of one — sits underneath much of the argument over restrictions.

China's Xi has called for the setting up of a global AI governance framework among Global South nations, while pitching China as a pioneer in establishing an open-source AI community. The head of China's Ministry of State Security has also called for "accelerating the establishment of a system for preventing and managing AI security risks" in a recent article.

State Media Calls It a 'Cold War Playbook'

In an editorial published Sunday, China's state-run Global Times newspaper dismissed Amodei's essay as a veiled call to "contain" China. It said that Amodei's essay may appear on the surface to be focused on global AI security, but that it is "packed with containment provisions targeting China and is, in essence, a 'Cold War playbook' for the AI sector."

The editorial's language mirrors a broader pattern in Beijing's response: framing U.S. technology restrictions not as safety measures but as an effort to hold back a competitor. That framing has now been applied directly to one of the most prominent executives in the AI industry.

The Advisory That Preceded the Essay

Amodei's essay was published a few days after the FBI, National Security Agency and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency issued a joint cybersecurity advisory last week, saying Chinese AI developers had engaged in "aggressive, malicious" efforts in extracting, or "distilling," capabilities from some of the most advanced AI models in the U.S. like Anthropic's Claude and OpenAI's GPT.

China's Commerce Ministry dismissed the U.S. claims as groundless and said "distillation" has been commonly used by many AI companies. It also said that the U.S. was pursuing a "monopoly of the AI industry."

The disagreement over distillation — whether extracting capabilities from a model counts as legitimate research practice or malicious activity — is now central to the broader fight over how AI development should be governed between the two countries.

A Question of Cooperation and Compute

Both China and the U.S. want "to make sure the other side cannot establish a tech chokepoint over them," said Lizzi C. Lee, a fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute's Center for China Analysis. Lee laid out the contradiction at the heart of the debate.

"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?" Lee said.

— Lizzi C. Lee, fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute's Center for China Analysis

The Numbers Behind the Dispute

Several concrete figures and dates anchor the exchange:

• The Trump-Xi meeting is planned for Sept. 24.
• Amodei's essay was published on Saturday.
• Amodei predicted a swarm of AI "agents" could take over the internet in six to 12 months unless researchers agree to slow down.
• The joint advisory from the FBI, NSA and CISA was issued last week.
• The Global Times editorial was published on Sunday.

What Comes Next at the Summit

The immediate question is whether the Sept. 24 meeting between Trump and Xi will produce any movement on AI governance, or whether the two sides remain locked in the positions they have now staked out publicly. Trump's comments on Sunday suggest the White House is not currently inclined to slow down U.S. AI development, even as Amodei and others have called for pacing.

China's response — through both the foreign ministry and state media — signals that Beijing intends to treat U.S. restriction efforts as an attempt to contain its technological ambitions, rather than as a safety measure. The Commerce Ministry's dismissal of the distillation advisory and its charge of an AI "monopoly" reinforce that position.

For now, the dispute remains a war of statements: an essay, a press conference, an editorial, and a set of remarks from the U.S. president. Whether it hardens into policy depends on what the two leaders discuss when they meet later this month.

Why It Matters

For companies building or deploying AI, this dispute could shape more than diplomacy. If the U.S. tightens restrictions on chip and equipment sales, Chinese AI developers may accelerate efforts to build alternatives, while U.S. firms could lose access to a major market. If the two countries fail to find common ground on frontier safety, the kind of global coordination Amodei called for may be harder to achieve — a scenario that could affect how quickly and under what rules advanced AI systems are deployed worldwide. The outcome of the Sept. 24 meeting could determine whether the current public posturing turns into concrete policy, or whether both sides continue to talk past each other.