China's Xi calls for self sufficiency in AI development amid US rivalry
[HONG KONG] China's President pledged 'self-reliance and self-strengthening' to develop artificial intelligence (AI) in China, state media reported on Saturday (Apr 26), as the country vies with the US for supremacy in AI, a key strategic area.
Speaking at a Politburo meeting study session on Friday, Xi said China should leverage its 'new whole national system' to push forward with the development of AI.
'We must recognise the gaps and redouble our efforts to comprehensively advance technological innovation, industrial development, and AI-empowered applications,' said Xi, according to the official Xinhua news agency. Xi noted policy support would be provided in areas such as government procurement, intellectual property rights, research and cultivating talent.
Some experts say China has narrowed the AI development gap with the United States over the past year. The Chinese AI startup DeepSeek drew global attention when it launched an AI reasoning model in January that it said was trained with less advanced chips and was cheaper to develop than its Western rivals. China has also made inroads in infrastructure software engineering.
The DeepSeek announcement challenged the assumption that US sanctions were holding back China's AI sector amid a fierce geopolitical tech rivalry, and that China lagged the US after the breakthrough launch of OpenAI's ChatGPT in late 2022.
'We must continue to strengthen basic research, concentrate our efforts on mastering core technologies such as high-end chips and basic software, and build an independent, controllable, and collaborative artificial intelligence basic software and hardware system,' Xi said.
He added that AI regulations and laws should be speeded up to build a 'risk warning and emergency response system, to ensure that artificial intelligence is safe, reliable, and controllable.'
Xi said last year that AI shouldn't be a 'game of rich countries and the wealthy,' while calling for more international governance and cooperation on AI. REUTERS
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Business Times
25 minutes ago
- Business Times
Global alarms rise as China's critical mineral export ban takes hold
[WASHINGTON] Alarm over China's stranglehold on critical minerals grew on Tuesday (Jun 3) as global automakers joined their US counterparts to complain that restrictions by China on exports of rare earth alloys, mixtures and magnets could cause production delays and outages without a quick solution. German automakers became the latest to warn that China's export restrictions threaten to shut down production and rattle their local economies, following a similar complaint from an Indian electric vehicle (EV) maker last week. China's decision in April to suspend exports of a wide range of critical minerals and magnets has upended the supply chains central to automakers, aerospace manufacturers, semiconductor companies and military contractors around the world. The move underscores China's dominance of the critical mineral industry and is seen as leverage by China in its ongoing trade war with US President Donald Trump. Trump has sought to redefine the trading relationship with the US' top economic rival China by imposing steep tariffs on billions of US dollars of imported goods in hopes of narrowing a wide trade deficit and bringing back lost manufacturing. Trump imposed tariffs as high as 145 per cent against China only to scale them back after stock, bond and currency markets revolted over the sweeping nature of the levies. China has responded with its own tariffs and is leveraging its dominance in key supply chains to persuade Trump to back down. BT in your inbox Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox. Sign Up Sign Up Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are expected to talk this week, White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Tuesday, and the export ban is expected to be high on the agenda. 'I can assure you that the administration is actively monitoring China's compliance with the Geneva trade agreement,' she said. 'Our administration officials continue to be engaged in correspondence with their Chinese counterparts.' Trump has previously signalled that China's slow pace of easing the critical mineral export ban represents a violation of the Geneva agreement. Shipments of the magnets, essential for assembling everything from cars and drones to robots and missiles, have been halted at many Chinese ports while the Chinese government drafts a new regulatory system. Once in place, the new system could permanently prevent supplies from reaching certain companies, including American military contractors. The suspension has triggered anxiety in corporate boardrooms and nations' capitals – from Tokyo to Washington – as officials scrambled to identify limited alternative options amid fears that production of new automobiles and other items could grind to a halt by summer's end. 'If the situation is not changed quickly, production delays and even production outages can no longer be ruled out,' Hildegard Mueller, head of Germany's auto lobby, said on Tuesday. Frank Fannon, a minerals industry consultant and former US assistant secretary of state for energy resources during Trump's first term, said the global disruptions are not shocking to those paying attention. 'I don't think anyone should be surprised how this is playing out. We have a production challenge (in the US) and we need to leverage our whole of government approach to secure resources and ramp up domestic capability as soon as possible. The time horizon to do this was yesterday,' Fannon. Diplomats, automakers and other executives from India, Japan and Europe were urgently seeking meetings with Beijing officials to push for faster approval of rare earth magnet exports, sources told Reuters, as shortages threatened to halt global supply chains. A business delegation from Japan will visit Beijing in early June to meet the Ministry of Commerce over the curbs and European diplomats from countries with big auto industries have also sought 'emergency' meetings with Chinese officials in recent weeks, Reuters reported. India, where Bajaj Auto warned that any further delays in securing the supply of rare earth magnets from China could 'seriously impact' EV production, is organising a trip for auto executives in the next two to three weeks. In May, the head of the trade group representing General Motors, Toyota, Volkswagen, Hyundai and other major automakers raised similar concerns in a letter to the Trump administration. 'Without reliable access to these elements and magnets, automotive suppliers will be unable to produce critical automotive components, including automatic transmissions, throttle bodies, alternators, various motors, sensors, seat belts, speakers, lights, motors, power steering, and cameras,' the Alliance for Automotive Innovation wrote in the letter. REUTERS
Straits Times
32 minutes ago
- Straits Times
Justice Department accuses two Chinese researchers of smuggling 'potential agroterrorism weapon' into US
FILE PHOTO: United States Department of Justice logo and U.S. flag are seen in this illustration taken April 23, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo Justice Department accuses two Chinese researchers of smuggling 'potential agroterrorism weapon' into US WASHINGTON - U.S. federal prosecutors have accused two Chinese nationals of smuggling a dangerous biological pathogen that had the potential to be used as an agricultural terrorism weapon into the United States for research. The U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday identified the pathogen as Fusarium graminearum, a fungus it said was classified in scientific literature as a potential agroterrorism weapon. In a statement it said that the fungus causes "head blight" in some crops and is responsible for billions of dollars in economic losses globally each year. According to an FBI criminal complaint, Zunyong Liu, 34, a researcher currently in China, brought the fungus into the United States while visiting his girlfriend, Yunqing Jian, 33, in July 2024. He admitted to smuggling in the fungus so he could conduct research on it at a University of Michigan laboratory where his girlfriend worked, according to the complaint. The university did not immediately respond to a request for comment. According to the complaint, an examination of electronic communications between the two indicated that they discussed shipping biological materials and research being done in the laboratory prior to Liu's arrival. Jian and Liu were accused in the complaint of conspiracy, smuggling goods into the United States, false statements and visa fraud. Cheyvoryea Gibson, special agent in charge of the FBI Detroit Field Office, said the pair's actions "posed an imminent threat to public safety." Jian was expected to appear in court in Detroit, Michigan, on Tuesday. A judge appointed a public defender, who could not be immediately reached for comment, to represent Jian. REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Business Times
40 minutes ago
- Business Times
Chinese firms brush off US tariff risks with domestic confidence
[HONG KONG] When US President Donald Trump took aim at China with record tariffs, the country's firms shrugged it off. Corporate China has since gone out of its way to assuage investors and tout its ability to weather tariff risks, citing experiences from Trump's first administration and that their businesses ultimately are not that exposed to the US. Overseas revenue only accounts for 10 to 15 per cent of total revenue for Shanghai or Shenzhen-listed companies – so-called A-shares – and close to 12 per cent for the country's benchmark CSI300 index, according to Steven Sun, head of research at HSBC Qianhai Securities. 'The US specifically only accounts for less than 2 per cent of CSI300's total revenue.' This means there is a fundamentally limited impact on A-share earnings. 'China is less reliant on the US for its exports than before,' Sun said, noting that the US accounted for around 20 per cent of China's exports in 2018 compared with around 14 per cent today. Companies are also highlighting a shift in supply chains, and are doubling down on research and development to boost growth, according to a Bloomberg News analysis of corporate transcripts and filings in April and May. Luxshare Precision Industry, a major Apple supplier, told shareholders that products exported to the US were no longer produced in China since the start of the trade war from 2018. BT in your inbox Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox. Sign Up Sign Up 'Although tariffs may affect the consumption sentiment of importing countries, we have always relied on diversified development to buffer various challenges,' chairperson Wang Laichun said on an earnings call in early May. 'Even if the market is slightly affected, we can still digest it and ensure the steady development of the company.' Testing defiance Companies' defiant mindset is being put to the test as US-China tensions are rising again, following a brief surge of relief induced by the tariff truce last month. Trump – hours after claiming China violated its agreement with the US – expressed confidence a conversation with Chinese President Xi Jinping could ease fresh trade tensions, though China has since accused the US of violating their recent trade deal and vowed to take measures to defend its interests, dimming prospects of further bilateral talks. Shenzhen-based DR Corp, which makes jewellery products, sped up the process to make its supply chain more global, though it remains optimistic about the US market in the long run and will continue to increase investment and promotion for the country. 'In the face of uncertainty in the US market, we have developed a new strategy to deal with the situation: we will consider brand building and retail operations separately, and focus on increasing investment in brand building,' according to a conference call transcript in May. When US-China tensions peaked with tariffs as high as 145 per cent for Chinese goods, domestically-focused corporations such as Wens Foodstuff Group, which offers livestock and poultry farming services, said the trade war has little impact on its production costs. 'The company predicts the possible impact of the Sino-US trade war in advance, and reserves a certain amount of medium- and long-term feed raw materials when prices are relatively low,' according to a late-April earnings call transcript. The domestic recovery of China's economy is more important for Chinese firms, said Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Marvin Chen. China has been dealing with US tariff hikes for the past seven to eight years, so corporates have already been realigning supply chains, according to Chen. 'Tariffs may impact corporate sentiment, but the expectation is that domestic policy support will do enough to offset the impact.' Lingering export risks Still, first-quarter earnings have been a mixed bag. 'While the stimulus measures implemented at the end of 2024 are beginning to feed through to the domestic economy, the results from China tech giants have diverged somewhat, due to competition and a fragile consumer recovery,' Chen said. In mid-April, Chinese appliance maker Midea Group said Chinese exports face more uncertainties this year, while trade frictions caused by tariffs have increased the operating costs of home appliance companies. Factory orders meanwhile slumped the most in April since September 2022 as US tariffs took a toll on smaller exporters despite the trade war truce, while Chinese earnings saw a sharp downward revision that month as tariffs peaked. Even though rates have come down since, they are still higher than before, which will put pressure on Chinese exporters, HSBC's Sun said. 'Most companies have remained cautious about the trajectory of tariffs, with 2025 consensus earnings forecasts being mostly flat since Apr 12.' 'There is still high uncertainty in what happens in 90 days, if a trade deal can be reached, and if so what the details will be,' Chen said, adding that impacts from additional tariffs can start to be observed during mid-year results. BLOOMBERG
