{"slug": "scott-bessent-says-china-wont-disclose-ai-incidents-pushes-for-bilateral-system", "title": "Scott Bessent says China won’t disclose AI incidents, pushes for bilateral notification system", "summary": "US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said China would not voluntarily disclose significant AI incidents, speaking during talks with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in New York on September 20, 2026, where the two sides explored a bilateral system for notifying each other of national security-level AI incidents. The proposed mechanism builds on a May 2026 discussion between President Trump and President Xi that first floated a broader \"US-China AI dialogue,\" and it explicitly excludes export controls on advanced AI chips. Bessent, who warned in mid-2026 that China's AI advancements are America's \"biggest risk\" in technology, framed the goal as a \"shared vision for common goals and threats\" on artificial intelligence.", "body_md": "# Scott Bessent says China won’t disclose AI incidents, pushes for bilateral notification system\n\nThe US Treasury Secretary's warning underscores a widening transparency gap between the two AI superpowers as they negotiate new communication channels.\n\nUS Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has put a sharp point on something Washington has long suspected: China would not voluntarily disclose if it experienced significant AI incidents. The statement, made during discussions with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in New York on September 20, 2026, frames the core problem that a proposed bilateral AI notification mechanism is meant to solve.\n\nThe talks concluded with both sides exploring a system where the US and China would notify each other about national security-level AI incidents.\n\n## What Bessent is actually proposing\n\nThe notification mechanism would create a formalized channel for the world’s two largest AI developers to flag serious incidents to each other. Bessent framed the goal as building a “shared vision for common goals and threats” between the US and China on artificial intelligence.\n\nThis isn’t a proposal that materialized out of thin air. It builds on earlier discussions between President Trump and President Xi from May 2026, where establishing a broader “US-China AI dialogue” was first floated.\n\nOne notable carve-out: export controls on advanced AI chips are explicitly excluded from the proposed dialogue.\n\n### AI, tech, and the markets they move—in one daily briefing.\n\nDaily. Free. Join 34,000+ readers across crypto, finance, and policy.\n\n## The bigger picture: distillation and the technology race\n\nBessent’s push for transparency arrives against a backdrop of escalating US concerns about Chinese AI development practices. A central worry in Washington involves what’s called AI model “distillation,” where Chinese firms allegedly leverage outputs from advanced US AI systems to accelerate training of their own models.\n\nBessent himself warned earlier in mid-2026 that China’s AI advancements represent America’s “biggest risk” in technology.\n\n## What this means for markets and policy\n\nThe exclusion of chip export controls from the dialogue creates a split-screen dynamic for semiconductor companies. Those firms remain caught between enormous demand from AI development and tightening government restrictions on who they can sell to. The fact that Washington chose to keep chip policy separate from the AI safety conversation suggests the administration views export controls as a leverage tool it doesn’t want to negotiate away at the safety table.\n\n**Disclosure:** This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our\n\n[Editorial Policy](https://cryptobriefing.com/editorial-policy/).", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/scott-bessent-says-china-wont-disclose-ai-incidents-pushes-for-bilateral-system", "canonical_source": "https://cryptobriefing.com/bessent-china-ai-incidents-disclosure/", "published_at": "2026-09-21 12:12:41+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-09-21 12:22:36.054899+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-policy", "artificial-intelligence", "ai-safety"], "entities": ["Scott Bessent", "He Lifeng", "China", "United States", "Donald Trump", "Xi Jinping", "US Treasury Department"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/scott-bessent-says-china-wont-disclose-ai-incidents-pushes-for-bilateral-system", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/scott-bessent-says-china-wont-disclose-ai-incidents-pushes-for-bilateral-system.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/scott-bessent-says-china-wont-disclose-ai-incidents-pushes-for-bilateral-system.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/scott-bessent-says-china-wont-disclose-ai-incidents-pushes-for-bilateral-system.jsonld"}}