China’s Xi pursues AI diplomacy to woo global south

{"text":[[{"start":9.55,"text":"China’s President Xi Jinping has set out an alternative vision for global AI development that analysts say many developing countries will find hard to refuse. "}],[{"start":19.5,"text":"Not only will Chinese companies make AI widely available through open-source models, but China will help train thousands of people from developing countries to use them through the establishment of international “application co-operation centres”."}],[{"start":33.85,"text":"“This is a major move by China to answer the call of the global south,” Xi told the audience at the “World AI Conference” in Shanghai last week, as Chinese-developed humanoids — known as embodied AI — plied the halls outside the venue, showcasing China’s parallel prowess in advanced manufacturing."}],[{"start":null,"text":"

"}],[{"start":51.85,"text":"For Beijing, the offer, which was crowned by Xi’s announcement of the new 29-member World AI Cooperation Organisation (Waico), is among the most ambitious yet in its bid to build an alternative global order to that of the US-led west."}],[{"start":66.45,"text":"Beijing is increasingly trying to fill a global leadership vacuum left by the US withdrawal from international organisations through initiatives ranging from the Belt and Road infrastructure programme to others covering security, governance and development."}],[{"start":81.05,"text":"While many of these initiatives begin with vague-sounding names and few detailed objectives, analysts say, Beijing has proven adept at gradually filling in the blanks with new Chinese-led agencies, agreements and other forms of co-operation aimed at binding other countries more closely to its strategic vision."}],[{"start":99.1,"text":"If China can take the lead on global AI adoption and standard setting, it will control one of the most groundbreaking technologies since the internet, giving it an opportunity to impose its values over those of the US-led liberal world order."}],[{"start":113.14999999999999,"text":"Xi’s AI push “is definitely a Chinese attempt to do something that they couldn’t do 20 years back when the internet was in its beginnings,” said Arindrajit Basu, a doctoral researcher at Leiden University, adding that the worldwide web was set up according to American liberal values."}],[{"start":130.45,"text":"Beijing’s AI initiative “is very much in line with China’s attempt to reform the core norms that underpin the way we see and understand the world and the way we understand technology”, he said."}],[{"start":142.29999999999998,"text":"China’s push to wrest early geopolitical leadership of AI from the US predates Xi’s Shanghai speech last week by several years and builds on earlier initiatives, such as its “Digital Silk Road”."}],[{"start":156.14999999999998,"text":"Announced in 2015, this provided assistance to countries to build telecommunications networks, AI capabilities, cloud computing, ecommerce and mobile payment systems, surveillance, smart city and other high-tech areas using Chinese knowhow and equipment, according to the Council on Foreign Relations. "}],[{"start":175.24999999999997,"text":"About one-third of the about 150 countries in China’s Belt and Road programme have reportedly participated in the Digital Silk Road."}],[{"start":183.89999999999998,"text":"But the key breakthrough came in January 2025 with the so-called “DeepSeek moment”, when a homegrown Chinese company challenged American dominance of large language models."}],[{"start":194.74999999999997,"text":"AI instantly became a greater part of China’s suite of diplomatic offerings to other countries. The frequency of mentions of the term “AI” in meetings between China’s top leadership and their foreign counterparts increased sharply after DeepSeek compared with the period before, China’s foreign ministry announcements show. "}],[{"start":214.14999999999998,"text":"To build foreign dependence on Chinese AI, China also launched the China-ASEAN Countries Artificial Intelligence (AI) Application Cooperation Center last year. "}],[{"start":225.04999999999998,"text":"A collaboration with south-east Asian countries, it will focus on building AI infrastructure, offering open-source platforms, and cultivating talent, Beijing said. In Shanghai last week, Xi promised to open similar centres with African, Middle Eastern and Latin American organisations."}],[{"start":242.7,"text":"The Waico, whose members include the Brics group of developing countries minus India — Brazil, Russia, Indonesia and South Africa — promises to work with a similarly broad group of nations. "}],[{"start":254.64999999999998,"text":"The US has a rival organisation, known as Pax Silica, a 24-member coalition. But this is designed more to secure AI supply chains, semiconductors and critical minerals."}],[{"start":266.95,"text":"“Waico can be a very good platform to export Chinese technology and open-source models to global south countries,” said George Chen, partner and co-chair of digital practice at Asia Group, adding that China planned to nearly double the group’s membership. "}],[{"start":282.45,"text":"“What China wants to achieve is, of course, to get the majority of the world to rely on Chinese technology versus US technology.”"}],[{"start":289.9,"text":"He said US “closed models”, which include products offered by OpenAI and Anthropic, were too expensive for most consumers in global south countries, which lacked the capacity to develop their own AI. "}],[{"start":301.95,"text":"“So China has suddenly provided a very good Plan B [for developing countries], maybe even better than the Plan A,” Chen said. "}],[{"start":310.84999999999997,"text":"While both countries have open-source models, Beijing’s explicit backing of the technology and promise to help countries build the capabilities to use it could mean Chinese products enter wider use. "}],[{"start":322.49999999999994,"text":"The end result could be a market that looks a lot like Google’s open-source Android, which is used by a wide range of smartphones, versus Apple’s closed iOS system, said Kevin Xu, founder of Interconnected Capital."}],[{"start":336.54999999999995,"text":"“What I envision three years from now is that OpenAI and Anthropic will still make the most money and then you have a bunch of open models . . . a lot of them coming from China,” said Xu."}],[{"start":347.44999999999993,"text":"While China is touting open source, there is no guarantee that its companies will continue to make their models accessible if they come to dominate the technological frontier, analysts say. "}],[{"start":358.0999999999999,"text":"Some of the groups, including Alibaba and ByteDance, have already made their leading models a closed system as pressure to commercialise their tech increases."}],[{"start":367.5999999999999,"text":"China’s Ministry of Commerce has also spoken to top AI companies about limiting the transfer of key data for the training of their models overseas, as well as limiting the downloads of their model weights by foreign users. "}],[{"start":381.0499999999999,"text":"Another limitation for Chinese companies is that hardware and chips used in training AI remain dominated by American companies, notably Nvidia."}],[{"start":389.3999999999999,"text":"Still, for developing countries, China’s offer to help them navigate this complex new world would be compelling, Xu said."}],[{"start":396.6499999999999,"text":"“Because the developing countries will be like: ‘Well, we don’t even have a 10th of the resources that China has. How are we going to keep up with this?’” Xu said. “China’s answer is: come to our country. We will educate you with our open-source software and this is how we’re going to do it.”"}],[{"start":420.44999999999993,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1784893407_4207.mp3"}