Token diplomacy: How China is shaping the world’s AI future | Semafor
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Exclusive / Token diplomacy: How China is shaping the world’s AI future
J.D. CapeloutoReporter and Lead Writer, Semafor Flagship
Jul 28, 2026, 6:30am EDTJul 28, 2026, 6:30am EDT
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In this article:<br>The Scene
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J.D.’s view
Room for Disagreement
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The Scene
In the days before the American AI industry erupted in a bitter dispute over Kimi K3 and other Chinese open-weight models, thousands of world leaders, tech executives, and AI researchers converged at the sprawling Palexpo convention center in Geneva, Switzerland, for what the UN billed as a global dialogue on AI governance.<br>Hosted by the UN agency that sets international tech standards for everything from satellites to spectrum, the AI for Good summit featured all the usual tech-conference trappings: a massive expo hall of vendors hawking robotic dogs and networking equipment; circuit regulars like will.i.am and John Legend; and AI-generated, well, everything.<br>Notably absent, however, were the leaders of US frontier labs — the most prominent American CEO was Salesforce’s ubiquitous Marc Benioff — and Trump administration officials who’ve been thumping their chests over why the US needs to tighten its grip on AI. In their place was a massive delegation of Chinese government officials and executives who fanned out over the course of four days to make a largely undisputed case that for most of the world, free Chinese-made models are the future.<br>China’s AI can be a “resource” for other countries much like energy is, said prominent Chinese computer scientist Wang Jian, a former Microsoft Asia executive and the chief architect of Alibaba’s cloud business, which is now growing faster than Amazon’s, albeit from a smaller base. “Having a choice for the rest of the world is very important.”
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Wang, who now runs a government-backed AI research institute, spoke to Semafor on the sidelines of the UN conference, where a floor below the flashy mainstage, a quieter, more significant conversation was happening in a windowless room bearing a blue banner in English and Chinese that read “Group of Friends of Global Governance.”<br>The Chinese-led alliance was formed last year as a counter to US and European influence, and Wang spoke along with dozens of other Chinese government officials and executives to pitch ministers from Pakistan, Russia, Zambia, and across the Global South on how open-source AI could help their countries’ economies. The unspoken message: As America pulls back from many of the world’s regulatory bodies, China can be the more reliable partner.<br>The moment offers a glimpse at the broader Chinese global strategy of a kind of “token diplomacy,” where efforts are centered around supplying AI tokens rather than ports, railways, telecom networks, and other infrastructure built across the developing world for more than a decade through the Belt and Road Initiative.
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In the same way China flooded the world with cheaper solar panels and electric vehicles — setting de facto industry standards that would help the Chinese lock up global market dominance along the way — Beijing is now making its AI models widely available, offering its open-source models at cheaper costs than US rivals, and promising to train countries around the world on how to use it.
In this article:<br>The Scene
Know More
J.D.’s view
Room for Disagreement
Notable
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It’s a familiar playbook. Chinese tech firms have already helped shape UN facial recognition and surveillance standards — policies that have been adopted by many developing nations. Beijing also led the drafting of new UN rules on automated driving systems, following a workshop in Shanghai; those regulations were adopted globally with the backing of all major auto powers.<br>China’s also benefitting by a shift in countries seeking technological independence from the US, which was exacerbated last month when the US’ abrupt export controls on Anthropic’s Mythos and Fable models created massive disruptions for non-US companies and governments using the frontier lab’s models.
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A week after the UN conference, Chinese leader Xi Jinping put a finer point on the Chinese mission: “We should seize this rare, historic opportunity to encourage open source,” he said in a speech at the World AI Conference in Shanghai touting China as a benefactor to...