{"slug": "why-china-will-rule-ai", "title": "Why China Will Rule AI", "summary": "China's Minister of State Security Chen Yixin published an article in Chinese media listing AI threats to \"political\" and \"ideological security,\" cybersecurity, espionage and \"military struggle,\" stating that as of June 2026 China had more than 500 million AI product users and daily word meta-calls exceeding 140 trillion. Chen cited US large-scale models including \"Claude Mythos\" and \"GPT-5.5-Cyber\" as improving the efficiency and weaponization of network vulnerability discovery and malware development. The Noema Magazine essay by editor-in-chief Nathan Gardels argues China's centralized Communist Party authority allows it to impose \"human alignment\" of AI as ideological alignment with the Party, while open societies lack a core institution able to impose control over frontier AI models.", "body_md": "Nathan Gardels is the editor-in-chief of Noema Magazine. He is also the co-founder of and a senior adviser to the Berggruen Institute.\n\nIn his 2013 book, “The End of Power,” Moisés Naim famously wrote that “power no longer buys as much as it did in the past. In the twenty-first century, power is easier to get, harder to use—and easier to lose.”\n\nThat may be true for deconstructed authority in the West, but it is not true in China where the weighty center of authority remains in the un-deconstructed Communist Party. There, power is hard for others to get, easily used and nearly impossible ever to lose.\n\nThis systemic incapacity of open societies puts them at a disadvantage when it comes to ruling frontier AI models.\n\nEndless appeals about the dangers of unleashed AI from rosters of the most eminent scientists, [Papal encyclicals](https://www.noemamag.com/pope-leo-xiv-ai-wealth-must-be-universally-shared/) and monarchical meditations gain no effective traction. The public is warily confused and feels helpless to affect the set course of events. By and large, legislators appear hopelessly clueless and slow on the draw as AI development exponentially accelerates.\n\nThe dire warnings and calls for regulation by the top CEOs of Big Tech are suspect as a ruse to create a cartel of the most powerful to keep competitors at bay. The “leader of the free world” simply dismisses any and all worries as nothing more than a “hoax” that will prevent America from becoming great again.\n\nEveryone throws in their two cents or two trillion and then throws up their hands in virtual resignation. At the end of the day, there is no core institution or vested authority that can impose control over AIs demonstrably capable of escaping their programmed confines. Unable to reach consensus out of the cacophony of voices and welter of conflicting interests, the best we can hope for — if that — is a pause in the pace toward the precipice by the AI companies themselves.\n\nThe Chinese government, by contrast, is taking the reins firmly in hand with few qualms. In China, “human alignment” of AIs equals ideological alignment with the Party, which will resolutely thwart any threat to its enduring dominance by superintelligent machines.\n\n## **The AI Threats China Sees**\n\nEven as official propaganda accuses Western warnings about loss of control of AIs as “fear-mongering,” China’s Minister of State Security, Chen Yixin, last week made crystal clear where the lines would be drawn. In an article published in Chinese media, he listed the key threats to “political” and “ideological security,” cybersecurity, espionage and “military struggle.”\n\nIt is worth [reading the list](https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/jsc97cKVYOcHuI_WisvOxw) to get a sense of how those in charge in China see the AI challenge:\n\n**“First, AI has a systemic impact on the political and security environment.** As of June 2026, the number of users of artificial intelligence products in China exceeded 500 million, with daily word meta-calls exceeding 140 trillion, and the application of artificial intelligence has been rapidly and comprehensively deployed. Various hostile forces and individuals with ulterior motives abuse generative artificial intelligence technologies such as deepfake audio and video, AI-generated text and images, and intelligent online trolls to fabricate political rumors, spread harmful information, and incite confrontational sentiments at low cost and in large quantities, waging a propaganda war and a cognitive war against us, directly threatening our political security, institutional security, and ideological security.\n          \n\n**Second, the cybersecurity landscape is undergoing a disruptive upgrade.** Marked by recent developments in large-scale models like “Claude Mythos” and “GPT-5.5-Cyber” by US tech companies, artificial intelligence technology is significantly improving the efficiency and weaponization of network vulnerability discovery and malware development. Cybersecurity is entering a new phase characterized by vulnerability industrialization, fully automated attack and defense, and AI versus AI. Some countries and organizations possess the capability to rapidly and in large quantities discover vulnerabilities, automatically connect attack paths, and complete complex hacking tasks, drastically lowering the technical barriers and costs of launching cyberattacks and posing serious risks to China’s critical information infrastructure.\n\n**Third, the risk of large-scale espionage and leaks is amplified.** Foreign intelligence agencies are extensively using technologies such as intelligent web crawlers, intelligent data mining, and intelligent profiling to collect and acquire sensitive information such as key national data, trade secrets, and citizens’ personal privacy. Some domestic users lack sufficient security awareness, using foreign AI products to process sensitive information and export data overseas, resulting in large-scale data leaks from within the country. Even open-source AI tools like “Lobster,” [the Chinese nickname for OpenClaw] which became wildly popular in the first half of 2026, suffer from structural problems such as remote control of device management permissions and leakage of sensitive user information.\n\n**Fourth, monopolistic practices exacerbate the imbalance in technological development.** Some countries, leveraging their accumulated advantages in basic artificial intelligence theories, model architectures, and core computing power, use the pretext of “maintaining national security” to strictly restrict the introduction of cutting-edge technologies and equipment and the enhancement of technological innovation capabilities by means of establishing entity lists, implementing technology controls, monopolizing industry standards, and creating closed-source ecosystems. This fragments the global artificial intelligence industry chain and supply chain, exacerbating the imbalance in the development of the global intelligent industry.\n\n**Fifth, it has a structural impact on the social governance system.** The application of artificial intelligence brings a large number of uncertainties to social governance and public order. The “black box” of algorithms and the “poisoning” of data may amplify existing social biases. The abuse of personal information during data use may trigger a crisis of user trust. The automatic decision-making of the system creates problems in attribution of responsibility. In particular, the rapid development of artificial intelligence has broken through the traditional technology governance framework, causing existing legal norms, ethical principles and governance mechanisms to frequently lag behind in practice, making it difficult to form an effective institutional constraint and supervision system.\n\n**Sixth, it fundamentally transforms the form of military struggle.** Artificial intelligence technology is propelling warfare into an intelligent era. Whoever can achieve more refined perception, more accurate judgment, and more precise strikes through algorithms will gain the initiative on the battlefield. For example, in the US-Israel-Iran conflict, the militarized application of artificial intelligence has spurred the intelligent fusion of intelligence, intelligent decision-making assistance, intelligent target identification, intelligent support for actual combat, and intelligent shaping of cognition. Artificial intelligence is transforming from a ‘supporting role’ on the battlefield into a ‘key role.’”\n\n**Dissident AI Agents & Embedded Evaluators**\n\nThe message is clear enough. No dissident AI agents with “ulterior motives” will be allowed to collude, break out and challenge the material security of the state or the ideological security of the governing narrative through inciting “confrontational sentiments.” Any AI company whose models even approach that threshold knows what happened to Alibaba CEO Jack Ma. He thought it wise to decamp to Tokyo when the Party made clear to him who was in ultimate control once the e-commerce giant got too powerful.\n\nOne safeguard remedy proposed by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei is to place independent “embedded evaluators” in AI companies as a check against losing control of frontier models. China already has that in spades: AI companies of any consequence must have an embedded Party cell that keeps watch internally to ensure conformity with Party directives and remind them who, in the end, is the boss.\n\nAs has often been reported, China has focused more on developing and diffusing practical applications of AI and less so on building ever-more powerful frontier models. Where they are pursuing that objective as a matter of strategic imperative, those models will not be the proprietary province of private interests but tightly corralled and protected by the Party-state security apparatus.\n\nThe asymmetry with open societies is stark. China has the central political authority, institutions, managed social consensus and ready policy instruments to rule AIs that the West is lacking. History will tell which is the better match for superintelligence.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/why-china-will-rule-ai", "canonical_source": "https://www.noemamag.com/why-china-will-rule-ai", "published_at": "2026-09-22 15:25:43+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-09-22 15:56:53.367150+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-policy", "artificial-intelligence", "ai-safety", "large-language-models"], "entities": ["China", "Chen Yixin", "Ministry of State Security", "Nathan Gardels", "Noema Magazine", "Claude Mythos", "GPT-5.5-Cyber", "Communist Party"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/why-china-will-rule-ai", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/why-china-will-rule-ai.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/why-china-will-rule-ai.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/why-china-will-rule-ai.jsonld"}}