US efforts to hobble China’s AI march can only backfire, top internet official warns

America’s efforts to curb China’s artificial intelligence (AI) advancements are likely to boomerang on itself, a top Chinese cyberspace official has warned, while calling for increased regional collaboration. Sun Weimin, chief engineer at the Cyberspace Administration of China, the country’s primary web regulatory body, made the comments at the World Internet Conference Asia-Pacific Summit in Hong Kong on Monday. “Attempts to contain China’s development in AI will ultimately only constrain [the US’] own progress,” she said. “The US has recently been wielding the tariff stick on a global scale – but what will be the ultimate outcome? … History suggests that high tariffs tend to disrupt global value chains for hi-tech products and hamper the pace of global innovation.” China and the United States have become caught up in a fierce tit-for-tat tariff war following sweeping nation-specific duties imposed by US President Donald Trump in recent weeks. Trump first raised the “reciprocal” US import levy on Chinese goods to 34 per cent earlier this month before ratcheting it up to the current accumulated 145 per cent – though he exempted smartphones, computers, and other tech devices and components last week. China has retaliated in kind, with total levies on US imports hitting 125 per cent, while warning its citizens against travelling to the United States and limiting Hollywood film releases in Chinese theatres. Senior Chinese officials at Monday’s conference called on the world to “transcend the zero-sum mindset” and “abandon technological bullying” to push for better AI development. In the face of fresh risks brought by the US-China tariff disputes, countries in the region should work together and leverage technological cooperation to consolidate the security and stability of global supply chains, they said. Wang Yong, vice-chairman of the national committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, Beijing’s top advisory body, said China advocated for respecting the cyber sovereignty and governance model of all countries, while rejecting “zero-sum games and technological bullying”. Traditional risks persisted and new security variables had emerged in cyberspace, Wang warned in his keynote speech, but did not elaborate. He also suggested that China and other countries use “technology as a thread to weave closer world economic ties” and work jointly to “safeguard the security and stability of global industrial, supply, and technological chains”. Mirroring Wang in her address later in the day, Sun suggested that all parties around the world “move beyond zero-sum thinking” and “work together to build collaborative networks that transcend national borders and span across sectors”. By upholding the principles of openness and sharing, countries could share foundational AI models through open-source platforms, promote the integrated development of computing power, and lower the barriers to technology adoption, she said. China had often been seen as “a fast follower”, limited to replicating Western innovation, but the success of DeepSeek offered a strong rebuttal to that perception, Sun added, referring to the Chinese start-up whose AI models have taken the world by storm. A crucial takeaway for policymakers was the need to embrace an open-source approach to spur innovation, she said. “A nation’s strength does not lie solely in whether it invents a new technology first, but in its ability to scale and apply that technology efficiently across industries,” Sun said. “Relying solely on subsidies, regulations, or sanctions is never a sustainable path.” For AI, success depended “not only on how it is developed, but more importantly on how it is used, deployed, refined, and continuously improved through real-world application”, she said. Speed and flexibility were “critical” and mattered more than perfection, Sun added, noting that continuous feedback and iteration were key to creating a positive cycle across “academia, industry, research and application”.

US efforts to hobble China’s AI march can only backfire, top internet official warns

Officials from top web watchdog and advisory body call for greater regional cooperation, end to ‘zero-sum’ mindsets amid US tariff risks