Opinion | AI’s Threat to China’s Control

As artificial intelligence reshapes the world, it is making its presence felt in high-level diplomacy. After meeting with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in New York Sunday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told journalists that the world’s two AI superpowers discussed establishing a channel for communication over AI developments with national-security implications. This is good news, but deep cooperation between the two countries will be difficult to build.

On AI as on so much else, Washington and Beijing see similar problems through different lenses. Both sides seek the military and economic advantages AI can bring, but both also worry about the job losses, economic turmoil and potential catastrophes the new technology could unleash. Chinese officials, however, will be focused on a topic many Americans haven’t thought much about: the existential threat AI could present to communist rule.

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Appeared in the September 22, 2026, print edition as 'AI’s Threat to China’s Control'.

Walter Russell Mead is the Ravenel B. Curry III Distinguished Fellow in Strategy and Statesmanship at Hudson Institute, the Global View Columnist at The Wall Street Journal and the Alexander Hamilton Professor of Strategy and Statecraft with the Hamilton School for Classical and Civic Education at the University of Florida.

He is also a member of Aspen Institute Italy and board member of Aspenia. Before joining Hudson, Mr. Mead was a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations as the Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy. He has authored numerous books, including the widely-recognized Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World (Alfred A. Knopf, 2004). Mr. Mead’s most recent book is titled The Arc of A Covenant: The United States, Israel, and the Fate of the Jewish People.