Why is Chinese state media telling people to stop using English AI terms?

China's state media, including People's Daily, has called for replacing English AI terms such as 'agent' and 'LLM' with standardized Chinese equivalents to boost the country's 'discourse power' in global technology governance. The commentary argues that reliance on foreign terminology leads to 'cognitive dependency' and undermines China's authority to define key concepts, following the official designation of 'ciyuan' as the standard translation for 'token' in March at the China Development Forum 2026.

Why is Chinese state media telling people to stop using English AI terms? People’s Daily commentary is part of broader efforts to bolster China’s ‘discourse power’ in global conversations China’s state media has called for English-language terms related to artificial intelligence AI to be dropped in favour of standardised Chinese equivalents in a push to boost the country’s “discourse power”. As AI technologies have rapidly spread in China, English terms have entered common speech in the country, such as “agent” and “LLM” for large language model, a commentary published by the Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily noted earlier this month. The article argued that reliance on foreign terminology would lead to “cognitive dependency” and ultimately undermine the country’s voice in global technology governance. official designation of https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3347887/china-names-trillions-ai-token-after-yuan-should-us-worry-dollar?module=inline&pgtype=article as the standard translation for “token” in March at the China Development Forum 2026. ciyuan Ci means “word”, while yuan is often associated with fundamental elements or currency. Specifically, the yuan is the base monetary unit of China’s official currency, the renminbi. The commentary said that reliance on foreign jargon could deprive China of the authority to define key concepts, stunt the growth of original domestic theories and hinder the development of a Chinese framework for talking about technology. English AI terms were rarely self-explanatory to ordinary Chinese people, the commentary argued, contrasting them with earlier examples of technologies whose names were localised, such as dian nao – electric brain – for computer.