China calls Anthropic CEO’s AI slowdown plan a ‘Cold War playbook’

China's state-backed Global Times on Monday published a sharp editorial denouncing Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei's call for slowing the development of frontier artificial intelligence, labeling the proposal a "Cold War playbook" designed to curb Beijing's technological rise. The rebuke landed as a separate warning from China's top intelligence official underscored growing anxiety within Beijing itself about the risks posed by rapid AI advancement.

'Hypocritical and Short-Sighted'

Amodei published a roughly 3,800-word essay titled "We Must Pace the Frontier" on Saturday, arguing that AI companies should deliberately slow the rate at which they improve model capabilities while independent evaluators verify safety practices. The essay was subsequently endorsed by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Elon Musk.reuters+3

The Global Times editorial said the true agenda was "to attempt to curb China's AI development through technological barriers and regulatory monopolies, uphold Washington's monopolistic hegemony in cutting-edge technology, and exclude China from the global AI governance system". It called the approach a "silent AI Cold War" that was "hypocritical and short-sighted," warning that excluding China from global AI innovation would "significantly increase the trial-and-error costs and risks of loss of control in global AI development".straitstimes+2

Amodei had urged the U.S. to strengthen chip export controls on China and crack down on alleged model distillation by Chinese AI labs. He told CBS News on Sunday that the "toughest dilemma" over his proposal was the possibility that China and other adversarial nations would not follow suit.cnbc+1

Beijing's Own AI Anxieties

Even as the Global Times pushed back, China's State Security Minister Chen Yixin published one of Beijing's most detailed official warnings about AI risks. Writing in China Cyberspace, a journal run by the Cyberspace Administration of China, Chen warned that AI has become "a new arena for strategic rivalry among major powers" and that the technology could threaten political security, critical infrastructure, and ideological stability. He noted that advances in frontier models could lower the threshold for executing cyberattacks.bloomberg+1

Chen called for constructing a "security barrier" around AI while seizing its opportunities, reflecting a tension within Beijing between wanting to lead in the technology and fearing its destabilizing potential.ground

Diverging Responses in Washington

President Trump on Sunday dismissed calls to slow AI development, saying "very negative forces" were raising exaggerated concerns. "We're leading China in AI," Trump said. "Whoever wins AI wins".reuters+1

The U.S. and China are planning their first official bilateral discussions devoted exclusively to AI safety in mid-September, according to Reuters, and the issue could arise during a summit between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping scheduled for September 24.usnews+1