Following a high-level bilateral summit between Chinese and U.S. leaders in Beijing that opened new space for dialogue on emerging technologies, artificial intelligence has emerged as a promising potential area of collaboration between the world’s two largest technological powers, according to leading international affairs experts, who are also sounding the alarm over the urgent need to address cross-border AI risks before they escalate.
During U.S. President Donald Trump’s official visit to China in May, the two heads of state held productive, constructive discussions on artificial intelligence development and governance, and reached a consensus to launch formal intergovernmental dialogue focused on the topic.
At a May 19 press briefing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun emphasized that as the world’s two leading AI powers, China and the United States bear a shared responsibility to work together to advance responsible AI development and strengthen global AI governance frameworks. Such collaboration, he noted, would ensure the technology serves as a driver of human progress and delivers shared benefits to the entire global community.
Fred Teng, president of the America China Public Affairs Institute and a fellow at the U.S. Foreign Policy Association, told China Daily that AI can no longer be framed as a narrow technical issue confined to research labs and tech companies. “AI is now an economic, security, governance and strategic stability issue,” Teng said. He stressed that joint action by China and the United States to mitigate risks stemming from the malicious use of AI is not just beneficial—it is essential.
Teng warned that the pace of AI advancement is already outstripping the development of diplomatic frameworks, regulatory rules, and public understanding of the technology. Capabilities that were once restricted exclusively to national governments, he noted, will soon be accessible to small non-state groups and even individual actors, creating unprecedented risk.
“AI can make cyberattacks more automated, deepfakes more convincing, fraud more scalable, and biological or chemical risks harder to control. These dangers do not respect borders,” Teng said. “AI is not separate from strategic stability. AI is now part of strategic stability.”
Zhiqun Zhu, professor of political science and international relations and director of the China Institute at Bucknell University, echoed Teng’s call for urgent collaboration, noting that unchecked AI progress poses shared global dangers that no single country can address alone.
“AI technologies are progressing rapidly and changing the world enormously, so there is an urgent need to establish some protocol about the usage of AI at the international level,” Zhu explained in an interview. “The United States and China are the two biggest technological powers and should take the leadership in developing such protocols.”
Even so, Zhu acknowledged that turning shared interests in responsible AI into tangible, concrete cooperation will present significant challenges. Reaching consensus on the boundaries and appropriate uses of AI, especially in sensitive domains tied to national security, will be “a tall order,” he said.
Despite these hurdles, experts say the two countries are uniquely positioned to lead global AI risk mitigation, even amid ongoing bilateral competition. Kyle Chan, a fellow in the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution, argued that large-scale collaboration on AI risk reduction does not require broad bilateral trust, full strategic alignment, or compromise on core national interests.
“The United States and China can continue to compete vigorously in AI while taking practical steps to reduce shared risks,” Chan wrote in a recent Brookings Institution commentary.
Teng, who also serves as an adviser to the George H. W. Bush Foundation for US-China Relations, outlined a series of practical, low-barrier starting points for cooperation that focus on shared risk reduction rather than broad systemic alignment. First, he called on both governments to align AI safety standards for advanced AI models that could impact cyber operations, biological research, global financial systems, critical national infrastructure, and military decision-making processes.
Teng also proposed that the two sides build dedicated AI risk-reduction mechanisms, including secure emergency communication channels that can be activated in the event of an AI-enabled attack on critical infrastructure. Additionally, he said cross-border information sharing on malicious AI use—ranging from AI-powered cybercrime and deepfake disinformation to threats against critical public services like hospitals and power grids—should be a core priority for early dialogue.
In the military domain, Teng said the two governments must agree on foundational ethical and operational principles, most importantly that human actors must retain full responsibility for all life-or-death strategic decisions, even as AI systems grow more autonomous and capable.
Teng drew a parallel to Cold War-era nuclear risk reduction cooperation between the United States and the Soviet Union, where the two geopolitical rivals maintained fierce systemic competition while collaborating on practical measures to reduce the risk of accidental conflict. The same logic, he argued, applies to AI governance today.
“Cooperation can be limited to areas of shared risks, such as AI-enabled cybercrime, attacks by non-state actors, crisis communication, model safety testing and protection of critical infrastructure,” Teng said. “Cooperation is not a concession; it is responsible self-protection.”