Chinese AI firms DeepSeek and Moonshot will brief the UN Security Council on AI safety this week, according to sources. This discussion, framed around AI safety and governance, occurs as the global capitalist powers intensify their struggle for technological supremacy.
The Reuters report on the invitation was published today, September 22, 2026. A separate analysis from The Diplomat, also published today, links America's AI safety dilemma directly to the upcoming Trump-Xi Summit and the broader competition between the United States and China over AI technology and policy.
The Capitalist Imperative
The Trump administration faces domestic pressure to slow AI development. Yet, it simultaneously fears that any such slowdown would only benefit China's own drive for capital accumulation. The administration views tighter controls on chips, compute power, and access to American models as a primary strategy to impede Chinese AI advancement. This summit is expected to shape policy on export controls and diplomatic signaling, all designed to protect and expand US capital interests.
Corporate leaders echo this competitive stance. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published an essay 10 days ago, titled “We Must Pace the Frontier,” advocating for leading labs to deliberately slow their models' capability growth. Sam Altman of OpenAI committed to hosting independent evaluators, a move Elon Musk supported. However, President Donald Trump later dismissed fears of an AI catastrophe as a hoax, stating that “the only one that is happy about it is China” amid backlash against AI and data centers. This reveals the ruling class's prioritization of national economic advantage over collective safety concerns.
The stakes are clear for the ruling class. President Trump declared that “whoever wins AI wins.” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned of “no day after tomorrow if China wins” on AI, adding that “nothing [else] would matter.” These statements underscore the zero-sum nature of this imperialist competition for technological dominance and the vast profits it promises.
Despite these pronouncements, public sentiment shows significant concern. A new Politico poll found 63 percent of respondents saw a real chance that AI could wipe out humanity. A CBS News/YouGov survey indicated most Americans want AI development slowed, though not stopped. Politico also found Americans split, 43 percent to 37 percent, on whether falling behind other countries is acceptable for safer AI. Trump’s 2024 voters, however, preferred staying in the AI race, 50 percent to 38 percent, over prioritizing safety issues, aligning with the administration's pro-capital agenda.
State-Backed Suppression
Amodei's proposals for “safety” directly target China. He suggested coordinating with “authoritarian governments” like Beijing, while simultaneously urging the exclusion of “powerful AI chips or semiconductor manufacturing equipment” from Chinese hands. He also called for closing “chip smuggling operations,” restricting remote access to data centers, cracking down on unauthorized distillation, and hardening labs against theft of model weights. Amodei explicitly agreed with Bessent that “a Chinese lead in AI would pose grave danger for the United States and the world,” framing technological competition as an existential threat.
The US state apparatus has already moved to enforce these restrictions. Earlier this month, the NSA, FBI, and CISA jointly accused six Chinese developers, including DeepSeek and Alibaba, of industrial-scale distillation of American frontier models. Treasury Secretary Bessent stated in July that Washington could sanction firms found stealing from American models. Trump and Xi are also expected to discuss the rental of top Nvidia compute by Chinese firms through Southeast Asian data centers. The suspension of the Affiliates Rule, which extends export blacklists to affiliates of listed firms, expires with the Busan truce in November, signaling further potential for state-backed economic warfare. The Trump administration has cleared roughly 10 Chinese companies to buy Nvidia’s H200 chips, yet Chinese customs has kept nearly all of them out, demonstrating the complex web of state control.
China's state-backed response has been equally sharp. Beijing’s Foreign Ministry warned that “fearmongering, confrontation and vicious competition” would disrupt global AI governance. The state-run Global Times called the slowdown push a “Cold War playbook” for the sector. China’s Commerce Ministry threatened “resolute countermeasures” if Washington uses distillation accusations to suppress Chinese firms, even suggesting the resurrection of rare earth export controls suspended under the Busan truce.
The Limits of Reform
Amidst this escalating conflict, some reformist voices advocate for collaboration. Two of China’s most senior AI governance figures, Xue Lan and Zeng Yi, joined a Capitol Hill discussion convened by Senator Bernie Sanders this spring. Xue, who chairs China’s national expert committee on AI governance, called for “safe zones” where American and Chinese scientists could build safety standards together. Zeng, dean of the Beijing Institute of AI Safety and Governance, warned last week of mounting catastrophic risks, including “the hidden danger of human extinction.” Both helped draft China’s national AI governance principles, representing a desire for managed cooperation within the existing state system.
Treasury Secretary Bessent proposed a standing China-U.S. AI dialogue 2 days ago in New York, aiming for a mechanism to flag national security-threatening AI incidents. However, AI consultations Trump and Xi discussed in Beijing in May of this year were never formalized. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer confirmed chip export controls were not part of these AI safety mechanism discussions, revealing the continued separation of “safety” from economic control. China-U.S. crisis management mechanisms already have a poor record, as seen in the February 2023 Chinese high-altitude balloon incident. Amodei argued that restrictions “increase the leverage held by democracies and make an agreement more likely in the future,” explicitly linking “safety” to geopolitical advantage.
The administration’s ultimate answer to calls for slowing AI development is to force China to slow down instead. This strategy, while potentially playing well domestically, will not make American AI safer and risks scuttling a China-U.S. channel on AI risk before it even begins, ensuring the imperialist competition continues unabated.