NYT: In China, Western Existential-AI Warnings Are Read as a Ploy to Slow Domestic Labs

Lily Kuo's NYT dispatch argues that inside China, recent Western warnings about existential AI risk are widely read either as culturally alien or as a strategic ploy designed to slow Chinese AI companies from catching US rivals. The nationalist Global Times has framed Dario Amodei's safety pitch as carrying a 'hidden agenda' tied to US hardware restrictions on China. The piece frames the divide as a fundamental gap in how the two governments approach AI safety discourse, even as Beijing's own spy chief has voiced parallel concerns internally.