China Accuses Anthropic of Pushing a ‘Silent AI Cold War’

China’s state-backed Global Times has attacked Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s call to slow frontier-AI development as a “Cold War playbook”, arguing that the proposals would restrain China while protecting America’s technological lead.

Amodei has argued that frontier models are advancing faster than safety measures can keep pace and that development should slow to create time to address emerging risks.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Elon Musk have backed the broader case for slowing development.

But Amodei’s proposals extend beyond safety.

He has also advocated tighter U.S. restrictions on advanced chip exports to China and stronger action against alleged “distillation”, where Chinese AI developers are accused of extracting capabilities from Western models.

Global Times argues that the combination amounts to a “silent AI Cold War” designed to preserve U.S. dominance and restrict China’s ability to compete.

The newspaper is state-backed and its assessment of Anthropic’s motives is an argument, not an official Chinese government policy statement.

The strategic conflict underneath it is harder to dismiss.

Slow down, but who goes first?

The United States and China are simultaneously competitors in AI and potential partners in preventing the technology becoming uncontrollable.

U.S. and Chinese officials are expected to discuss frontier-AI safety risks this month, potentially before Donald Trump and Xi Jinping meet on September 24.

Any international agreement would require both sides to believe restraint will not simply hand the other an advantage.

That becomes considerably harder when some of the people warning that AI development is moving too quickly are also advocating measures specifically intended to constrain Chinese capabilities.

Washington hears an argument for slowing AI before safety falls too far behind.

Beijing may hear something rather different:

Slow down while America protects its lead.

The West increasingly argues that frontier AI may be too dangerous to race.

It is simultaneously determined not to lose the race to China.