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Beijing calls the AI slowdown plan a Cold War tactic

China's first official reply rejects pacing outright, even as its own security ministry lists six principal AI risks.

Assembled by Claude from 10 sources at 10 outlets · Monday, September 14, 2026, Morning edition, 10:23 AM EDT · no human byline

Disclosure. This item was assembled by an AI from the RSS excerpts of the outlets tagged inline. No human wrote or checked it before publication. Feed selection and categories are editorial choices by Teresa Lo. Nothing here is investment advice.

What happened

A Chinese state newspaper blasted Anthropic's calls to slow AI as a 'Cold War' tactic reuters.comusnews.com. Bloomberg reported that China rejected AI 'fearmongering' after Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei urged a slowdown bloomberg.com. The Associated Press reported Beijing hitting back at his call to curb China's AI development, following the lengthy essay he published on Saturday apnews.com.

The South China Morning Post reported that China rejects calls for 'pacing' on AI development, fearing it would entrench the US technology lead scmp.com. China's foreign ministry, in what AI Weekly described as the first official reply, said fearmongering, confrontation and vicious competition will only disrupt the process of global AI governance aiweekly.co. Chinese state media said Amodei was waging a 'quiet AI cold war' to restrain China's technological progress en.bloomingbit.io.

Why it matters to investors

The objection is not only about pace. Amodei also urged the United States to strengthen chip export controls on China and to crack down on alleged model distillation by Chinese AI labs reuters.comusnews.com. India Today reported that the dispute sharpens a wider clash over AI safety, export controls and global technology leadership indiatoday.in.

The Next Web noted that Beijing has spent months contesting export controls as government policy thenextweb.com. Read together with the South China Morning Post's account, the Chinese position is that a voluntary slowdown by American labs would lock in an American lead rather than reduce risk scmp.com.

What to watch

Beijing is not dismissing the underlying danger. China's minister of state security wrote in a weekend essay that AI posed six principal risks, including threatening the security of the country's political regime semafor.com. Semafor characterised the stance as issuing AI warnings while rejecting US calls to slow development semafor.com.

That leaves the labs' proposal without the second half of the field. Any pacing arrangement that binds only US developers runs into the argument Beijing has now made in public, through both state media and the foreign ministry reuters.comaiweekly.cobloomberg.com. For investors weighing the slowdown story, the question is whether an unenforceable pause changes spending at all scmp.comindiatoday.in.

Two responses came from different parts of the Chinese state within the same weekend, and they are not identical. The foreign ministry answered the essay as a matter of governance and competition aiweekly.co, while the security ministry answered it as a matter of domestic risk semafor.com. State media supplied the framing that has travelled furthest, casting the Anthropic chief executive as the author of a quiet cold war en.bloomingbit.ioreuters.com. The Associated Press tied the exchange back to the essay published on Saturday apnews.com.

Sources

  1. reuters.com: China state newspaper blasts Anthropic's calls to slow AI as 'Cold War' tactic | Reuters (2026-09-14)
  2. usnews.com: China State Newspaper Blasts Anthropic's Calls to Slow AI as 'Cold War' Tactic (2026-09-14)
  3. bloomberg.com: China Rejects AI 'Fearmongering' After Amodei Urges Slowdown - Bloomberg (2026-09-14)
  4. apnews.com: Beijing hits back at Anthropic CEO's call to curb China's AI development | AP News (2026-09-14)
  5. scmp.com: China rejects calls for 'pacing' on AI development, fearing it would entrench US tech lead (2026-09-14)
  6. semafor.com: Beijing issues AI warnings but rejects US calls to slow development (2026-09-14)
  7. indiatoday.in: China slams Anthropic CEO's AI slowdown proposal, calls it Cold War playbook (2026-09-14)
  8. thenextweb.com: Beijing answers Amodei's AI slowdown plan by calling it a Cold War script - TNW (2026-09-14)
  9. aiweekly.co: China's Foreign Ministry Slams Amodei's 'Fearmongering' AI Pacing Call in First Official Reply (2026-09-14)
  10. en.bloomingbit.io: China Criticizes US Big Tech Calls to Slow AI Development, Says They Stoke Fear and ... (2026-09-14)