US Proposes AI 'Hotline' to China Ahead of Trump-Xi Summit — SkimNews
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- Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent proposed a US-China AI dialogue and notification mechanism covering "common goals and common threats" to Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng during Sunday talks in New York, arguing the two top AI powers must move "from opaque to more transparency."
- Beijing confirmed via Xinhua that AI was discussed but said nothing about accepting the proposal; He Lifeng and trade negotiator Li Chenggang left Sunday's talks without speaking to reporters.
- The US-China military hotline, in place since 2008, requires a 48-hour response — but in 2023 Beijing declined then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin's call request after the US shot down a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon.
- Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei warned in an essay that AI could deploy "a persistent botnet" capable of "taking over the entire internet" within 6-12 months, a warning endorsed by OpenAI's Sam Altman and Elon Musk, who called for pacing frontier AI development.
- US companies invested $285.9 billion in AI in 2025 versus $12.4 billion in China, according to Stanford's 2026 AI Index, though China retains advantages in rare earth minerals and electricity generation for data centers.
- Trump has resisted calls from tech executives to slow AI development, saying "whoever wins AI, wins," while his science adviser Michael Kratsios told Fox News the "key thing" Washington wants is "avoiding shared risks."
- Xi Jinping's Wednesday-to-Friday state visit — Trump will welcome him at Joint Base Andrews — will also touch on unresolved tariffs, rare earths, Taiwan, and new US sanctions on Russian oil buyers China and India.
Why it matters: The 2024 US-China AI dialogue collapsed because frontier AI risks got mixed with broader disputes, Carnegie Endowment's Scott Singer noted. With tariffs, Taiwan, rare earths, and Russia sanctions all on Xi's Wednesday-Friday agenda, the hotline's success depends on keeping AI cooperation deliberately siloed — a diplomatic commitment neither side has yet made publicly.
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