Artificial intelligence: China's Communist Party leadership also fears loss of control through AI

When Silicon Valley tech bosses warned about the dangers of artificial intelligence, Beijing instinctively reacted with suspicion. The state-run Global Times, for example, viewed the debate as an attempt to curb China's rapidly advancing AI industry. The State Department also said US calls to slow technological development were “fear mongering”.

There are more and more experts in Beijing who fear a loss of control. On Sunday, of all people, Chen Yixin, Minister of the notorious State Security, published the most urgent appeal yet: “China must keep control over the development and regulation of artificial intelligence firmly in its own hands,” the intelligence chief wrote in an essay.

He warned of the external and internal dangers of the rapidly developing technology: Militarily, it will play a "key role" on the battlefield, and foreign AI models also pose an increased threat of espionage. But above all, according to Chen, AI could be misused as a tool of cognitive warfare: "This directly threatens our political security, the security of our system and our ideological security."

Chen's perspective is not surprising: the overarching goal of government leadership is always to secure the party's power. In dealing with the digital revolution, the Communist Party has undergone a major development in the last two decades: when it initially saw how the new social media helped frustrated youth to mobilize against corrupt autocrats in the “Arab Spring,” this immediately led to a rigid censorship policy in China.

But the paranoia has long since turned into self-confidence: the party has discovered how it can use digital platforms as an instrument of political control and propaganda.

She is now also taking this course with artificial intelligence. Chinese providers of generative AI are already heavily regulated in terms of content. Anyone who wants to talk to DeepSeek, which was developed in Hangzhou, about the biography of President Xi Jinping, learn more about the Cultural Revolution or ask about the anti-government protests at the end of the corona pandemic will be immediately cut off.

The party leadership has also imposed strict guidelines on the industry when it comes to labeling AI content. Online platforms must ensure that they do not distribute content prohibited under Chinese law and that they comply with the protection of minors. The regulations are stricter compared to the USA.

In addition, Beijing is also concerned about the threat of disruption to the labor market. “Technological progress does not automatically lead to leakage into the labor market,” said economist Cai Fang from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences last year.

But China's party leadership is by no means calling for a slowdown in AI research. For Xi Jinping, technology is at the core of China's rise to global power: With the help of artificial intelligence, he wants to create a socialist planned economy that is supposed to be superior to free market economies. And above all, he wants to achieve technological leadership in order to project military dominance.

This is based on a collective trauma: there is a perception among Beijing's cadres that “the century of national humiliation” was only possible because ancient China missed the technological innovations of industrialization. During the Opium Wars, the British's steam-powered gunboats brought the Chinese army to its knees. Now history must under no circumstances be allowed to repeat itself, Xi repeatedly swears to his cadres.

But what does this mean for the international community? In less than two weeks, the heads of state of the two AI world powers will meet in Washington. More and more experts are demanding that Donald Trump and Xi Jinping should also conduct a dialogue on AI regulation and, ideally, strive for a binding set of rules.

Critics find this naive. “If the People's Republic of China doesn't engage in arms control because it's militarily behind, why do people think it would engage in AI in any meaningful way?” says Bill Bishop, a longtime China watcher and author of the newsletter Sinocism. Sari Arho Havrén, China expert at the British think tank RUSI, also agrees: "AI is part of China's plan to catch up militarily. China's armed forces see AI as a shortcut to catching up with the USA's conventional military strength. No country agrees to a restriction in the very area on which it is pinning its hopes."