Bessent Says U.S. AI Lead Enables Productive China Safety Talks
CNBC reported Thursday that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent believes the United States can engage China on AI safety precisely because America currently leads in the technology. Bessent made the remarks from Beijing, where President Donald Trump was holding a two-day summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
U.S.-China Plan AI Best-Practice Protocol
Bessent told CNBC the two countries intend to establish a formal framework around AI best practices. The aim is partly to prevent non-state actors from accessing powerful AI models developed by either nation. He framed the United States’ technological position as the critical enabler of these talks, suggesting Washington would not be in the same negotiating posture if China held the advantage instead.
The Treasury Secretary also flagged an anticipated leap forward in large language model capabilities. He pointed specifically to upcoming releases from Google’s Gemini and OpenAI as likely to represent a significant step-change in performance.
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Nvidia Chips and the Semiconductor Flashpoint
Advanced semiconductors remain a central tension in the US-China AI rivalry. Washington has imposed sweeping restrictions on exports of high-end chips, primarily those manufactured by Nvidia, to Chinese buyers. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang joined Trump’s Beijing delegation as a late addition, underscoring the chipmaker’s strategic importance.
When pressed on reports that the U.S. had cleared Nvidia’s H200 chips for sale to several large Chinese technology companies, Bessent acknowledged there had been considerable back-and-forth on the question. He stopped short of confirming or denying the specifics of any new approvals.
Background: A Summit Years in the Making
This week’s Beijing visit marks the first time a sitting U.S. president has traveled to China since Trump’s own first-term trip in 2017. The summit carries weight on multiple fronts beyond AI. Xi told Trump that Taiwan represents the single most sensitive issue in the bilateral relationship and cautioned that mishandling it could push the two powers toward conflict.
Bessent signaled that Trump intends to address the Taiwan question publicly within days. He urged observers to avoid reading too much into diplomatic optics, arguing that Trump’s negotiating style is frequently misread.
Prior to the summit, Bessent met Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in South Korea. Beijing described those preliminary talks as an effort to resolve outstanding trade disputes and expand practical cooperation between the two economies.
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