Experts split on how to handle AI's role in US-China relations
A core question lies under every debate about the United States' relationship with the People's Republic of China: Are we truly adversaries?
This query underscores all discussions about the TikTok ban, tariffs, semiconductor manufacturing and the rise of DeepSeek. It also arose during a debate at Johns Hopkins University 's (JHU) primary campus in Baltimore last week that, on its face, aimed to explore whether stricter export regulation could help the US surpass China in AI development.
Instead of sticking to that specific topic, the moderated conversation between a quartet of economic, political and diplomatic experts took on the broader context of the two countries' often-contentious relationship.
The four experts appeared on Shriver Hall's stage for the second event in the Hopkins Forum, a series put together by JHU's SNF Agora Institute and the New York-based nonprofit Open to Debate.
Both organizations have connections to billionaire philanthropists; the Agora Institute's 'SNF' references the foundation of late Greek shipping magnate Stavros Niarchos, while Open To Debate was founded by the private equity and investment titan Robert Rosencranz, who still chairs its board.
The two entities' missions revolve around boosting democratic engagement through respectful dialogue across silos. Their priorities also manifest in the debate itself, as panelists brought up the US and China's respective roots in democracy and autocracy, as well as the role AI plays in how it gets deployed or commercialized.
The Hopkins Forum follows a debate structure with opening and closing statements, specific windows for responses and room for audience questions that Open to Debate uses in other events, which the organization then shares via social and public media. This debate came about three months after the first in the series, in which former US Attorney General Jeff Sessions and three other speakers debated the future of the Supreme Court.
For this debate, the four panelists took the original question — 'can the US outpace China in AI through chip controls?' — and ran with a conversation. They touched on topics such as AI competition and collaboration between institutions in the two countries, their respective affiliations toward democracy or autocracy, how each government uses AI in surveillance and national security matters and the political status of Taiwan.
Here are key quotes from each speaker's statements.
Susan Thornton, a retired US Department of State official and senior fellow at Yale Law School's Paul Tsai China Center. 'Making the AI competition with China a zero-sum game not only will not work — it is dangerous. We don't have to give China the cutting-edge chips; we did that back in 2019 with restrictions on [extreme ultraviolet] lithography technology. That was a move that was widely supported in the international community. It's an easy execution, easy implementation. Everyone agrees, and China accepts it, that they're not going to have the most cutting-edge technology chips. … We're the two leading AI powers. Everyone else in the world thinks we ought to be talking about [regulation], and I think we should focus on that instead of worrying about changing the chip controls every two weeks.'
Will Hurd, chief strategy officer of defense tech company CHAOS Industries, who was formerly a CIA officer, US congressman (R-TX) and OpenAI board member: 'This technology is evolving so fast, the next 35 years [are going to] make the last 35 years look like we were a bunch of monkeys playing in the dirt with sticks. And at that time, are we going to say, 'Did we do everything we can to make sure our way of life continued and was maintained?''
Paul Triolo, senior vice president for China and tech policy at the DGA-Albright Stoneridge Group: 'Both the Biden and the Trump administration have changed the goalposts in terms of the [export] controls, expanding the controls over the last two-and-a-half years, which has been really confusing to industry. It's disrupted global supply chains and it's disrupted critical technology relationships. And this comes with steep costs.'
Lindsay Gorman, senior fellow and managing director of the German Marshall Fund's technology program: 'This is about who controls the fundamental means of production of the next century. And in China, we have a coercive power — one that issues cyber attacks, that uses economic leverage when countries vote for a dissident to win a Nobel Peace Prize, or when they criticize the Chinese government. So the world that I'm imagining is one where someone speaks out against something the Chinese government has done, and their access to the new personalized medicine they're developing goes away.'
Check out the full debate below, and keep scrolling for some photo highlights from the event.
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