The Machine Intelligence Research Institute has published a memo compiling statements from Chinese government officials, scientists, and state-affiliated organisations that, the memo argues, demonstrate a consistent willingness to engage on global AI governance since at least 2017. The post draws on sourced public statements rather than presenting original reporting.
Among the statements collected, Chinese Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang, speaking at the 2025 World Economic Forum in Davos, described unchecked AI competition between countries as a “gray rhino” — a blatant, severe, and ignored threat — and said China “stands ready, under the framework of the United Nations and its core, to actively participate in including all the relevant international organizations and all countries to discuss the formulation of robust rules.” The memo cites C-SPAN video of the speech.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, in a November 2024 meeting with then-President Joe Biden, publicly agreed that AI should not be given control of nuclear weapons, according to the memo, which cites Politico’s coverage of the meeting.
Zhang Jun, Chinese Ambassador to the United Nations, is quoted from a 2023 UN Security Council briefing as saying: “The international community needs to enhance risk awareness, establish effective risk warning and response mechanisms, ensure that risks beyond human control do not occur, and ensure that autonomous machine killing does not occur. We need to strengthen the detection and evaluation of the entire life cycle of AI, ensuring that mankind has the ability to press the stop button at critical moments.”
The memo also notes China’s own AI safety institute, CnAISDA, founded in June 2025, whose leadership includes scientists Xue Lan, Yi Zeng, and Andrew Yao. The memo cites a South China Morning Post report that Yao warned after CnAISDA’s founding: “Once large models become sufficiently intelligent, they will deceive people,” and called for attention to “existential risks” from AI.
Yi Zeng, Director of the International Research Center for AI Ethics and Governance at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, is quoted from a UN Security Council briefing as saying: “In the short-term and the long-term, the risk of AI replacing and causing the extinction of humankind will be present.”
The memo also references the Bletchley Declaration, signed in November 2023 by thirty countries including the US and China, and The Economist’s August 2024 reporting on Xi Jinping, which stated that at a July 2024 party central committee meeting Xi “sent his clearest signal yet that he takes the doomers’ concerns seriously,” with the resulting report listing AI risks alongside biohazards and natural disasters and calling for monitoring AI safety.
The post presents the collected statements as evidence that Chinese governance positions on AI risk are more aligned with international coordination than is commonly assumed, though MIRI does not represent the statements as a negotiating commitment by the Chinese government.