Chinese President Xi Jinping used the APEC leaders’ meeting in Gyeongju to call for a World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization, positioning Beijing as an alternative to Washington on AI governance and trade. Xi said the body, which Chinese officials suggest could be headquartered in Shanghai, would set global rules and make AI a “public good.” The appeal comes as the U.S. resists binding international AI regimes and maintains curbs on advanced chips, even as Washington and Beijing agreed to a one-year partial rollback of trade and tech controls. Xi also pressed for freer circulation of green technologies, sectors where China holds global scale. APEC economies approved a joint declaration with pacts on AI and aging demographics, and China will host the 2026 summit in Shenzhen. The initiative underscores Beijing’s bid to shape standards amid the AI hardware dominance of Nvidia and China’s push for “algorithmic sovereignty” via domestic models such as DeepSeek.
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OECD AI Principles
AI Risk Management Framework (NIST)
