China fires back at U.S. AI safety warnings, calling them fearmongering to lock in American advantage
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China sharply criticized warnings about AI risks from Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and other U.S. AI leaders. The state-run Global Times accused Amodei of waging a "silent AI Cold War" to stifle China's technological progress, after he called for action against "distillation." Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun, speaking in Beijing, called for "open, inclusive, universally beneficial and ethical" AI development and said "fearmongering, confrontation and vicious competition" would disrupt global AI governance. China's State Security Minister Chen Yixin warned that "hostile forces" could misuse AI for deepfakes and cyberattacks, naming Anthropic's Mythos and OpenAI's GPT-5.5-Cyber as models capable of finding vulnerabilities and creating malware. Unlike U.S. tech leaders, Chen advocated more research into advanced chips, faster AI infrastructure buildout, and tighter supervision rather than a slowdown. Tsinghua researcher Sun Chenghao said Beijing worries Washington could use safety or national security concerns to justify broader tech restrictions, and Chinese officials may see slowdown calls as locking in an existing U.S. advantage. The debate comes ahead of a planned Trump-Xi summit on September 24; President Trump rejects a voluntary AI slowdown, while Amodei, Sam Altman and Elon Musk have previously pushed for slowing advanced AI development, with Altman saying pacing does not mean stopping. The article adds that if China refuses to go along, U.S. AI labs might have to rethink strategy and could end up racing to build the most powerful AI as fast as possible, akin to a Cold War arms race.
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