China Pitches Its AI Leadership to the World

Welcome to Foreign Policy’s Southeast Asia Brief.

The highlights this week: Five Southeast Asian countries are represented in China’s new AI organization, Bangladesh wants to build a fence along its border with Myanmar, and a Thai civil service exam cheating scandal leads to arrests.

Shanghai AI Summit

Last Thursday saw China launch its World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization (WAICO) in Shanghai, followed by a four-day conference on the matter. Government representatives from a number of Southeast Asian countries attended, including Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul on his first official visit to China since taking office.

Speaking at the conference, Chinese President Xi Jinping called for international cooperation on AI. China tech watcher Kyle Chan read the speech as Xi implicitly contrasting China’s open-source models with the United States’ closed models, rendering China a global goods provider and the United States a selfish tech hoarder.