Beijing dismisses Amodei's AI slowdown as 'fearmongering' — while China warns of AI risks at home

Beijing dismisses Amodei's AI slowdown as 'fearmongering' — while China warns of AI risks at home

When Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called on the AI industry to slow down over the weekend, the responses came quickly — and they diverge not only between countries but within China's own policy. The week's AI storm also lands just days before the Trump–Xi meeting on September 24.

What Amodei proposed

Amodei published the essay "We Must Pace the Frontier" on Saturday, September 12, 2026. Its core message is that AI companies must deliberately reduce their pace so that risk management can keep up:

"We must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models. Progress will still seem fast, and we must make wise use of the time we gain."

His reasoning: full risk management requires more caution — not only investing in risk prevention, but also regulating the speed of capability development so that prevention has time to catch up (darioamodei.com).

According to NBC News, Amodei also warned that a Chinese lead in AI "would pose grave danger for the United States and the world," and urged the U.S. to restrict sales of key technology to China. This is reported via NBC's summary of the essay and is not directly quoted from the primary source.

Beijing's two-track response

The Foreign Ministry pushed back as early as Monday, September 14. Spokesperson Guo Jiakun told journalists:

"Fearmongering, confrontation and malicious competition will only disrupt the process of global AI governance and serve no one's interests." (NBC News)

On Sunday, the state-controlled Global Times had already gone harder. According to NBC, the editorial called the proposal for an industry-wide slowdown "packed with containment provisions targeting China" and "in essence, a 'Cold War playbook' for the AI sector." The editors' full text is not available — only NBC's rendering.

Yet at the same time, China's own risk focus appears on other sides of the official discourse. State Security Minister Chen Yixin said on Sunday that China must "accelerate the establishment of a system for preventing and controlling AI security risks," and wrote in the state magazine China Cyberspace that China must "engage extensively in international cooperation" — while also describing AI as "a new track for strategic rivalry" (NBC News).

The tension between the foreign-policy rhetoric and domestic policy is not merely an outside observer's impression. According to Reuters via The Straits Times, a Chinese AI safety framework published in September 2024 under the Cyberspace Administration of China for the first time included an explicit future scenario in which AI could escape human control. In other words: Beijing is not denying the risk Amodei warns about — what the rejection targets is whether a slowdown in the West serves anyone's interests other than China's.

Trump's counterattack

President Trump has rejected the warnings outright, both to reporters and on Truth Social. To reporters on Sunday, he said: "We're leading China in AI. We're the most sophisticated country in the world, and frankly I want to keep it that way because whoever wins AI wins" (NBC News).

On Truth Social, he attacked Amodei by name. According to the New York Post, Trump wrote that "There is a SICK conspiracy going on against AI and Data Centers, and the only one that is happy about it is China. WHOEVER WINS AI, WINS!" — and, according to the paper, called the risk that AI could destroy humanity a "HOAX."

Among industry leaders, the tone was different: OpenAI's Sam Altman backed Amodei's proposal to give independent evaluators employee-equivalent access, and Elon Musk said the Anthropic CEO was right (Bloomberg via Yahoo Finance).

The backdrop that sharpens the conflict

The essay came days after U.S. agencies published a warning that top Chinese AI companies have systematically copied advanced American models — an allegation Beijing has rejected (NBC News). The copying warning and Amodei's call for technology restrictions mean that China is effectively responding to a package of criticism, not just one essay.

The road ahead: Trump–Xi on September 24

The question is what happens when Trump meets Xi Jinping on September 24. According to NBC's coverage, AI is expected to be on the agenda, but it is uncertain how concretely pacing, safety frameworks, or technology restrictions will come up in the meeting. The documented basis so far is this: Amodei wants to slow down, Trump wants to win the race, and Beijing rejects "fearmongering" externally — while China's own safety frameworks since 2024 have been preparing for precisely the scenario Amodei argues requires a slowdown.