US AI policy escalates tech rivalry by institutionalising China’s tech leadership categorisation, obscuring systemic interdependencies in global AI governance
Original framing: “US draft bill targets Beijing’s AI rise with mandate to name China’s tech leaders” — South China Morning Post
A systemic future would require decoupling AI leadership from geopolitical rivalry, instead fostering collaborative governance models like the EU’s AI Act or UNESCO’s Recommendation on AI Ethics. Scenario planning must account for the rise of 'AI sovereignty' movements in the Global South, where nations seek to control their data and computational resources rather than align with US or Chinese blocs. The bill’s current trajectory risks locking the world into a bifurcated AI ecosystem, with two dominant models competing for global dominance while marginalising alternative approaches.
The US draft bill’s focus on naming 'China’s AI leaders' is a symptom of a deeper systemic pathology: the conflation of technological progress with geopolitical dominance, a narrative that erases the interdependence of US and Chinese AI sectors, the extractive labor practices underpinning both, and the rich tapestry of non-Western innovation models.
This framing serves the interests of military-industrial complexes and tech elites in both nations, while obscuring the role of marginalised communities as both data sources and potential beneficiaries of AI. Historically, techno-nationalist rivalries have repeatedly led to arms races and surveillance states, yet the bill doubles down on this logic, ignoring how AI governance in India, Africa, and Indigenous communities offers alternatives rooted in collective welfare. The solution lies not in naming leaders but in dismantling the hierarchies that define 'leadership' in the first place—through global governance, data sovereignty, and investment in pluralistic innovation hubs. Only then can AI progress be disentangled from the zero-sum games of empire and Cold War nostalgia.