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22 November 2025

China’s Approach to AI Development and Governance

Ren Xiao

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a new technological frontier that has wide-ranging economic, political, and military implications that could lead to changes in the global balance of power. The People’s Republic of China has embraced AI and enthusiastically attempted to advance it as part of the country’s drive to become a self-strengthening scientific and technological power. As a result, China is in many areas at or near the forefront of AI development and application. However, as global AI governance becomes a higher priority in the international community, China, like others, is grappling with the question of how to govern AI and its advancement, both domestically and internationally.
China’s Embrace of AI

In May 2015, China released the Made in China 2025 plan, which provided a blueprint for the next decade to establish the country as an advanced manufacturing powerhouse. The plan identifies nine strategic tasks and key areas, including enhancing manufacturing innovation, promoting integration of information technology and industry, strengthening the country’s industrial base, and building quality and brand development. Almost all of these priorities are directly related to or impacted by the development of AI. Thus, AI has become the core technology indispensable for future intelligent manufacturing and China’s economic plans in this space. The Made in China 2025 plan, together with the subsequent “Robotics Industry Development Plan (2016–2020),” released in April 2016, and the “‘Internet Plus’ Artificial Intelligence Three-Year Action and Implementation Plan,” released in May 2016, demonstrated that China has elevated developing AI technology to a level of national strategy.

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