As Trump accuses China of stealing voter data, Xi pitches Beijing as a responsible tech leader

As US President Donald Trump Accused Beijing of exploiting US election data Halfway around the world in China, Xi Jinping was giving a very different message in a televised speech broadcast in Washington.

Addressing hundreds of technology executives, researchers and industry figures who gathered in Shanghai on Friday for the opening of China’s flagship artificial intelligence summit, Xi said Beijing is a responsible global leader determined to shape the future of technology for the better.

“As artificial intelligence is advancing at a dizzying pace, we must ensure that its development is positive, for good and for humanity,” Xi said in his opening remarks at the conference. he said. “We must make its supervision and management precise and effective, and constantly improve measures to prevent loss of control.”

Xi spoke minutes after Trump made a series of allegations against the Chinese government, including that it illegally obtained 220 million American voter files as part of broader efforts to influence the US election. there is china He denied the allegations.

The juxtaposition of the two messages illuminates the deepening fault lines and concerns in the technological competition between the United States and China; The rapid rise of artificial intelligence deepens this competition even further.

Xi’s message – an open bid by China to set global rules on artificial intelligence – comes at a time of fierce US-China competition over the technology as well as intense concerns about the national security implications of artificial intelligence, including its ability to exploit software and database vulnerabilities.

In his speech, Xi opposed “overextending the concept of national security in the field of artificial intelligence” or “putting one country’s security above the security of others” and made subtle allusions to how Beijing views America’s approach to technology.

Instead, China has sought to push the message that technology should be a “global public good” and that it is willing to work with countries to develop it.

On the eve of the conference, China established the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization (WAICO), a new group of 29 countries friendly to China and its goals, including Russia, Indonesia and Pakistan.

“Xi sees AI as an opportunity to get more allies to compete with the United States, not only in AI technology but also in international relations (that) AI diplomacy,” said George Chen, head of the Hong Kong-based digital practice at consultancy The Asia Group.

He stated that he thought China had missed the chance to set the rules for the global development of the world wide web in recent years, but was in a much stronger position with the advent of artificial intelligence.

“Thirty or forty years ago, China was a very poor country… but everyone knows that today is different, and if AI is the new internet, China does not want to miss this opportunity again.”

heated race

It is widely seen that US companies are racing to the frontiers of technology as a key strategy to win the competition. Their models still largely lead in terms of capabilities and the equipment used to train and advance them.

But this gap is gradually narrowing. When it comes to winning the AI ​​race, experts say Beijing is heading down a different path: Applying and scaling up AI technology in robotics and automation, as well as large-scale adoption globally.

Chinese artificial intelligence companies such as DeepSeek and Zhipu have made great strides in closing the performance gap with US companies.

An increasing number of users around the world prefer the open source format of their models and lower operating costs compared to Silicon Valley offerings.

In May, 20 of the top 50 daily AI models on OpenRouter, a platform that allows users to interact with a wide variety of models, were from Chinese firms, according to an analysis by Our World In Data. This figure was only five at the beginning of 2025. Most of the others are Americans.

Washington has alleged in recent months that Chinese organizations are engaged in “deliberate, industrial-scale campaigns to distill U.S. border AI,” referring to a process in which a smaller model trains a larger model to improve its own capabilities.

Earlier this month, a Chinese regulator warned that it had identified a serious security “backdoor” risk in US firm Anthropic’s Claude Code tool. Anthropic said the so-called backdoor is an experimental mechanism to monitor abuse of the platform, and access to it is not allowed in China.

There are also deep concerns in Washington that foreign actors could use powerful artificial intelligence models to find and exploit cyber vulnerabilities in US critical infrastructure. The White House launched an effort to address these problems earlier this week.

Beijing is also exploring the possibility of restricting access to China’s most advanced artificial intelligence models from abroad, Reuters reported earlier this month, citing sources.

Both countries agreed to launch an AI dialogue following the summit between Trump and Xi in Beijing in May.

norm setter

The strengthening foothold of Chinese AI models around the world could help China’s goal of leading the spread and regulation of technology.

The conference in Shanghai demonstrates both the scope and limits of its scope, with state media calling this year’s event a record attendance but limited participation from American firms.

Attendees at the four-day Shanghai conference include UN Secretary-General António Guterres, nine Nobel laureates and Turing computer award winners, as well as more than 1,000 global businesses, organizers said.

This is Xi’s first participation in the flagship event since its launch in 2018; It’s a clear signal of the importance Beijing places on artificial intelligence and the growing competition with the United States to direct its future.

Western analysts have expressed concern that Beijing’s expanding role in setting global norms around AI will allow it to export the norms of its own highly restrictive media and internet environment.

And there are questions about how much global interest Beijing can generate in its new WAICO international body.

No major Western country is likely to sign on to a Chinese-controlled entity that would have broad authority over both AI and AI governance and security, according to Paul Triolo, a consulting partner at DGA-Albright Stonebridge Group in Washington.

“The real action for the United States will be to establish a credible bilateral dialogue with Beijing on border AI model management,” he said.

“Both sides must deal with complex bureaucratic challenges on the issue and deep distrust on both sides.”

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