China’s initiatives and recent US policies offer contrasting approaches to AI governance in a multipolar world

On Sept 1 last year, at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Tianjin Summit, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced the Global Governance Initiative, marking a new stage in a sequence of major policy initiatives China has advanced since 2021, namely the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative and the Global Civilization Initiative. Rather than standing apart as an abstract diplomatic slogan, the Global Governance Initiative reflects China’s assessment that existing mechanisms of global governance are increasingly misaligned with contemporary economic, technological and political realities. It signals China’s intention to move from calls for reform toward a more active role in shaping practical, cooperative arrangements within the evolving international order.

China’s approach to global governance reflects a long trajectory shaped by the successive crises that have exposed structural weaknesses in the international order. It started by focusing on reforming existing institutions, through platforms such as the G20 and BRICS, while advocating greater representation for emerging economies within global financial governance. As its economic and institutional capacities have expanded, China has moved beyond reform advocacy toward the provision of concrete governance solutions. Initiatives and platforms such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Belt and Road Initiative have signaled a willingness to contribute resources, standards and institutional capacity in areas where global governance gaps are increasingly visible.

The Global Governance Initiative reflects China’s assessment that global governance today is not only under strain but increasingly fragmented by unilateral actions, sanctions regimes and the politicization of global public goods. Domains once governed through relatively open multilateral arrangements — including finance, trade and technology — are now shaped by exclusionary practices. At the same time, emerging areas such as artificial intelligence, digital infrastructure and frontier technologies demand governance frameworks that are still underdeveloped.

China’s response places the United Nations at the center of global governance, reaffirming the principles of multilateralism, international law and consensus-based decision-making. Rather than proposing the replacement of existing institutions, the Global Governance Initiative seeks to strengthen and adapt them to contemporary realities. Regional platforms, including the SCO, are framed as complementary mechanisms capable of supporting governance experimentation, capacity building and coordination among diverse political and economic systems. In this sense, the Global Governance Initiative reflects China’s broader vision of global governance in a multipolar world: one centered on inclusive participation, development-oriented outcomes and shared responsibility. By combining diplomatic coordination with institution-building and practical initiatives, China positions itself not merely as a participant in global governance debates but as an increasingly active contributor to shaping its future direction.

AI provides a particularly revealing lens through which to examine this evolving governance model. As AI moves from a frontier technology to a general-purpose infrastructure, debates over its governance are increasingly shaping the contours of the global order. China’s Global AI Governance Initiative and Global AI Governance Action Plan offer an important window into China’s approach, while recent initiatives of the United States — most notably Winning the Race: America’s AI Action Plan and the Genesis Mission — illustrate a contrasting trajectory.

China’s AI governance proposals begin from the premise that artificial intelligence constitutes a shared domain of human development. AI is viewed as a global public good whose benefits and risks extend across borders, social systems and levels of development. This framing leads to a governance logic that emphasizes coordination, inclusiveness and long-term stability. Rather than treating AI primarily as a strategic asset to be secured, China positions it as an enabling infrastructure for sustainable development, public services and the resolution of global societal challenges. A defining feature of this approach is the effort to balance development and security. Chinese policy documents consistently stress that innovation should proceed alongside risk management, ethical safeguards and institutional oversight. Governance is presented not as a constraint on technological progress but as a necessary condition for ensuring that AI contributes to human well-being, social stability and environmental sustainability. This reflects a broader understanding of governance as an enabling framework rather than a restrictive regime.

Institutionally, China’s approach to AI is structured as a two-level architecture combining global norm-shaping with large-scale domestic deployment. At the external level, the Global AI Governance Initiative and the Global AI Governance Action Plan are addressed to an international audience and aim to shape standards, infrastructure and cooperative regimes, primarily through the UN framework and with a strong focus on the Global South. At the domestic level, the core policy instrument is the guideline issued by the State Council, China’s cabinet, on the implementation of “AI+” initiative — an economy-wide administrative directive coordinated by the National Development and Reform Commission. This domestic framework covers six priority sectors of AI integration: science and technology, industry, consumption, public well-being, public administration and global cooperation. It is complemented by a clear temporal road map. By 2027, China aims to achieve deep AI integration across these sectors, with next-generation AI terminals and agents reaching approximately 70 percent penetration in key domains of governance, production and everyday services. By 2030, penetration is expected to exceed 90 percent, signaling a transition from experimental deployment to routine reliance on AI-enabled infrastructures. By 2035, China plans to enter a new phase of development characterized as an “intelligent economy” and an “intelligent society”, in which AI operates as a foundational pillar of socialist modernization.

Inclusiveness occupies a central place in China’s AI governance logic, particularly with respect to developing countries. Capacity building, access to digital and intelligent infrastructure, data availability, and support for AI applications in healthcare, education, agriculture and poverty reduction are recurring themes. By embedding governance within concrete measures — such as infrastructure sharing, open-source ecosystems and data cooperation — China presents AI governance as a practical, action-oriented project rather than a purely normative exercise.

This approach contrasts with recent developments in the US. The US AI Action Plan and the Genesis Mission reflect a governance logic centered on strategic consolidation. The Genesis Mission, in particular, integrates datasets accumulated by US national scientific laboratories with private computational capacity into a unified platform designed to accelerate AI-enabled scientific discovery. While this initiative emphasizes openness within trusted research communities, it also introduces a restricted access model in which advanced AI capabilities are embedded within alliance-based infrastructures.

China’s AI governance initiative implicitly responds to this logic. By emphasizing open cooperation, shared infrastructure, and multilateral processes under the UN framework, China presents an alternative pathway in which participation is widened rather than restricted. Support for mechanisms such as the Global Digital Compact, international scientific panels, and global dialogue platforms reflects a commitment to institutional pluralism and inclusive rule-making. China also calls for responsible and ethical AI aligned with widely recognized values such as peace, equity and justice, urging restraint in military AI development and cooperative responses to misuse by criminal or extremist actors.

The comparison between China’s AI governance initiative and recent US policies highlights two distinct governance logics. One prioritizes inclusive development and multilateral coordination; the other emphasizes strategic integration and alliance-based access. AI thus becomes more than a technological issue. It serves as a test case for competing approaches to global governance in a multipolar world.

Igor Khodachek is the vice-rector for research and the director of the Center for Eurasian Studies at European University, St. Petersburg. Yana Leksyutina is the deputy head of the Institute of China and Contemporary Asia at the Russian Academy of Sciences.

The authors contributed this article to China Watch, a think tank powered by China Daily. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

Contact the editor at editor@chinawatch.cn.