Guest Essay China Is Scared of A. I. Just Not the Way We Are. Sept. 17, 2026, 11:00 a.m. ET Kyle Chan Mr. Chan is a fellow at the Brookings Institution who studies China’s technology development.

Anthropic’s chief executive, Dario Amodei, recently said the world should collectively slow the development of A. I. until we get a better handle on the safety risks this new technology poses. Sam Altman of Open AI and Elon Musk voiced their support for this plan.

American A. I. companies know they can’t tap the brakes on A. I. by themselves — China has to go along.

Chinese companies such as Deep Seek, Z.ai and Moonshot have A. I. models nearly as powerful as Anthropic’s and Open AI’s. And they likely pose many of the same risks; terrorists could potentially use their tools to carry out cyberattacks or design biological weapons.

Many people hope the upcoming summit between President Trump and China’s leader, Xi Jinping, could be an opportunity to make some headway on such a partnership. Too often, however, A. I. safety experts assume that China has the same concerns as we do about A.

I. The reality is, the Chinese have a different set of worries. And until we understand what those are, cooperation with China will be impossible.

Generally speaking, China doesn’t fret as much about A. I. as an existential threat to humanity. You don’t see its political leaders or the founders of Chinese A.

I. companies warning that superhuman A. I. is “probably the greatest threat to the continued existence of humanity,” as Mr. Altman wrote in 2015. It’s not central to Chinese A.

I. policymaking, nor a part of Chinese tech culture. That’s mainly because of differences in how the two countries think about A. I. training and development.

The leading American A. I. companies are hyper-focused on advancing “recursive self-improvement” — using A. I. systems themselves to develop even better A.

I. systems. There are fears that this feedback loop could accelerate the pace of A. I. development to the point where humans no longer have control over the process.

American tech leaders believe this takeoff point might be around the corner. Chinese A. I. companies are also working on recursive self-improvement.

But because of their limited access to A. I. computing power and the slower pace of progress, they believe the takeoff moment is still technologically a long way off. Chinese policymakers seem to share that outlook and so are more focused on building resilient A.

I. supply chains and increasing A. I. adoption throughout the economy. So why would the Chinese agree to a slowdown in A.

I. development if they don’t think a crisis is imminent? If anything, Chinese A. I. companies are trying to move faster, hoping to narrow the performance gap with American A. I. models.

For the moment, Chinese policymakers are more worried about the political and social risks caused by A. I. They don’t want it creating deepfakes of political leaders or saying the “wrong” things about Taiwan or Tiananmen Square.

They don’t want A. I. chatbots to create psychological dependencies or threaten child safety, or set off social instability or a mass movement powerful enough to topple the Communist Party. China’s A.

I. regulations today are generally aimed at these types of risks. Most new public-facing A. I. models must be registered with the government and pass a battery of tests before they can be released.

China has created extensive rules requiring labeling of A. I.-generated content and limiting how humanlike A. I. chatbots can operate.

A spokesman for China’s foreign ministry has dismissed U.S. calls for a slowdown as “fear-mongering” intended to hold the country back in the race for A. I. dominance. (Indeed, Mr. Trump has said he opposes a slowdown specifically to prevent China from catching up.).