CHINA PERSPECTIVE

Chinese media coverage of the American legislative framework on AI sits within a carefully orchestrated narrative by the Communist Party: one of a China that not only competes technologically with the United States, but proposes a superior governance model to Western regulatory disorder. Global Times, true to its assertive editorial register, frames Trump's framework as an "admission of weakness"—Washington must legislate because its companies are out of control, whereas Beijing has maintained harmony between innovation and state oversight. Xinhua adopts a more diplomatic but equally strategic tone, emphasising that China proposed as early as July 2025 the creation of a World Organisation for AI Cooperation (WAICO)—an attempt to shape global governance before American or European standards impose themselves by default.

China's regulatory apparatus is in fact substantially more developed than Western coverage suggests. The amendment to the cybersecurity law, which took effect on 1 January 2026, explicitly incorporates AI governance provisions. The National AI Governance Framework, published in September 2025, articulates principles Beijing seeks to export through multilateral institutions. Official vocabulary is codified: "peaceful development", "digital community of shared destiny", "win-win cooperation". Behind these formulations, Hong Kong's SCMP—the most nuanced of Chinese-language outlets—notes that Beijing's absolute priority is data control and algorithmic sovereignty, not citizen protection.

The central paradox, carefully obscured by state media, is the objective convergence between Washington and Beijing on the primacy of innovation and rejection of the European model. Neither the United States nor China favour a binding AI Act. But whereas Trump trusts the market, Xi trusts the Party. Both approaches share the same conviction: regulation must not impede the race for technological supremacy. The "century of humiliation"—the narrative frame that structures all Chinese foreign policy—transposes here: any Western standard imposed on China is perceived as a neocolonial attempt to constrain Chinese technological ascent. The angle of human rights—mass surveillance, social credit, facial recognition in Xinjiang—is conspicuously absent from all Chinese coverage.