The head of China’s intelligence agency has warned that artificial intelligence is posing a threat to national security and that outside powers could use the technology to undermine social order.
China’s Minister of State for Security, Chen Yishin, wrote in an article that hostile forces are misusing creative artificial intelligence technologies to create political rumors and spread harmful information.
He said that these hostile forces are waging public opinion war and cognitive war against China, which is a direct threat to our political security, institutional security and ideological security.
Chen Yishin has warned that artificial intelligence has now become the main arena of global technological competition and a new frontier of strategic competition between major powers.
He did not mention the existential threats posed by artificial intelligence or limiting the pace of technology development, but noted that Anthropic’s Cloud Myth and OpenAI’s CheatGPT 5.5 could pose serious threats to the critical information infrastructure of the cyber chain.
Chen Yi-shin has said that foreign intelligence agencies are widely collecting and obtaining sensitive information, including important national data, trade secrets and private information of citizens, using technologies such as intelligent web crawlers, intelligent data mining and intelligent profiling analysis.
He has said that the US-Iran war has also made clear the key role of artificial intelligence in the military sector, while better technology is providing superiority in the battlefield.
Chen Yishin has written that China must ensure independent control over key core technologies to protect its technological sovereignty, including the advanced computer chips essential for training artificial intelligence models.
This warning comes at a time when Chinese President Xi Jinping met with US President Donald Trump in Washington this month are going to do
Discussions between the two leaders are expected to include the governance and safe use of artificial intelligence, amid growing calls for more effective oversight of the technology.
US tech leaders have also called for a slowdown in artificial intelligence development.