Beijing Pushes Back Against Anthropic CEO’s Call to Slow China’s AI Race

When Anthropic’s founder Dario Amodei published a long‑form essay warning that a "Chinese lead in AI would pose grave danger for the United States and the world," he probably didn’t expect a terse rebuttal from the other side of the Pacific. Yet Beijing’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs was quick to fire back, calling the piece “fearmongering” and insisting that global AI governance needs cooperation, not confrontation.

Amodei’s argument was clear‑cut: keep cutting‑edge AI chips and the most advanced manufacturing equipment out of China’s hands, or risk losing the United States’ competitive edge. He even went so far as to predict that a swarm of autonomous AI agents could take over the internet in as little as six to twelve months unless the world collectively hits the brakes.

China’s spokesperson Guo Jiakun, speaking at a routine press conference, dismissed the alarmist tone. “Fear‑mongering, confrontation and vicious competition will only disrupt the process of global AI governance which serves no one’s interest,” he said, adding that all parties should work together.

President Donald Trump, who is slated to meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Sept. 24, brushed off the idea of slowing down development. “We’re ahead of China on AI, and whoever wins AI, wins,” he told reporters, suggesting the United States will keep pressing forward rather than pulling back.

Meanwhile, Chinese tech firms have rolled out AI models that, according to some analysts, can match the performance of U.S. offerings while costing less to run. Xi has framed China as a champion of an open‑source AI ecosystem and has called for a global governance framework that includes the Global South.

Notably, the head of China’s Ministry of State Security recently urged an “accelerated establishment of a system for preventing and managing AI security risks,” echoing the notion that China is taking the security angle seriously, even as it pushes its own capabilities.

The state‑run Global Times weighed in with a scathing editorial, labeling Amodei’s essay a thinly‑veiled attempt to “contain” China. The piece called the call for restrictions a “Cold War playbook” for the AI sector, implying that the United States is more interested in a monopoly than genuine safety.

Just days before Amodei’s publication, three U.S. agencies—the FBI, NSA, and CISA—issued a joint advisory warning that Chinese developers had been “aggressively” extracting, or “distilling,” capabilities from leading American models like Anthropic’s Claude and OpenAI’s GPT. China’s commerce ministry responded that such distillation is a common practice worldwide and that the U.S. accusations are unfounded, accusing Washington of trying to monopolize the AI industry.

Policy analyst Lizzi C. Lee of the Asia Society noted the paradox at play: “Both sides want to make sure the other cannot establish a tech chokepoint, yet they also expect cooperation on safety.” She asked what genuine collaboration looks like when one side is simultaneously demanding access and imposing restrictions.

All of this drama is unfolding just as the Trump‑Xi summit looms, promising that AI governance will be on the agenda alongside trade, climate and security. Whether the two leaders can find common ground—or simply end up talking past each other—remains to be seen.