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NEW 🧵: Alongside DeepSeek's breakthrough in open-source AI, Chinese firms, including DeepSeek, are converging with Western companies on AI safety promises. My latest for Carnegie Endowment analyzes this development amid growing US-China AI competition.

the united states’ crisis of trust, charted (2006-2024)

📩 The first OCPL newsletter of the year is out! We’d like to welcome the new kids on the block: - 20 talented OCPL Fellows - one exceptional non-resident expert - and, last but not least, DeepSeek’s market-shattering R1 model [Pic from Chinese NY celebrations!]

If you want to start with waste, start with Elon’s defense contracts at the Pentagon. In fact, we should start with transparency around defense contracts in general, which take up an enormous sum of public funds. But they won’t do that, will they?

Flagging this piece by Brookings China non-resident senior fellow Yun Sun: "Beijing assumes Washington’s own policies will dismantle the foundations of U.S. global hegemony...China’s top priority, then, is simply to weather the storm." foreignaffairs.com/china/chinas-t… via Foreign Affairs

📣New preprint!📣We’ve long known humans tend to anthropomorphize computers. But with the rise of social AI applications, like AI companions, studying this is now more crucial than ever. We introduce a new method for *empirically evaluating* anthropomorphic behaviors in LLMs🧵

Introducing our new OCPL Fellows Feature series, brought to you by our current cohort of talented researchers. These pieces explore key challenges at the intersection of U.S.-China and global emerging technology competition. Today? A look at how US tariffs are working out.

Tariffs are on/off/paused, and are targeted/universal, applied to our friends/foes/everyone, starting sooner/later. They'll be in place for the short/long run because they are a useful policy/bargaining chip, and will solve our problem with fentanyl/deficits/manufacturing/revenue

Fantastic reporting on how 🇨🇳 gov is getting more hands-on w/ DeepSeek by Juro Osawa & Qianer Liu -employees told not to travel, handing in passports -investors must be screened by provincial government -gov telling headhunters not to approach employees theinformation.com/articles/deeps…

Zero sum thinking poisons the mind, limits the imagination, and leads one to the mistaken inference that if they lose we must win.

🇺🇸🇨🇳🇭🇰 OCPL fellow Chun Hey (Brian) Kot examines the geopolitical tensions at play for Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison Holdings and its subsidiary, Hutchison Ports. thediplomat.com/2025/03/panama…

6/ Two confident predictions: 1) Beijing will seek common cause with other countries coping with US trade measures; 2) Beijing has no near-term expectation for Xi and Trump to speak by phone or meet. Buckle up, we’re entering pretty uncharted waters in US-China relations. END.

I just got a notice that an academic conference for 2026 was being moved from the US to Canada because of concerns people have with entering the US. The cell phone searches and random detentions at the border of people with visas and valid reasons to visit are going to have

Global discourse is shifting at Carnegie India’s #GlobalTechSummit. My takeaways: Europe is de-risking from both the U.S. and China. For much of the world, AI development versus AI governance is a false binary. And for India, multipolarity is Sambhavna (possibility)

As Trump disrupts decades-old alliances, India hedges its bets, increasingly receptive to overtures from China. The slow shift is by no means a realignment from fundamentally adversarial positions, but could expand India’s diplomatic options. wapo.st/4jj8wqm

“While the United States focuses on containing China’s AI capabilities, Beijing is building an ecosystem for humanoid robots that spans from research labs to factory floors to international standards bodies. The true measure of success in this competition won’t be which country

🚨 New OCPL Fellow research! How does Beijing try and incentivise countries to cut ties with Taiwan? OCPL fellow Leonhard Xu analyses the data. Two findings:

🚨 "History shows that “being the first” to achieve a given technological breakthrough does not necessarily translate into lasting market leadership." New piece from Kayla_Blomquist & Keegan McBride on US - China AI competition, and strategies for building global legitimacy.

🚨 New Fellows Feature! How Hacktivists in China Are Using Data Leaks for Dissent. OCPL fellow Estrella Hernandez provides a comprehensive briefing. 🔗 in next post: