Chinese Power and Artificial Intelligence: Perspectives and Challenges (Asian Security Studies)

This book provides a comprehensive account of Chinese AI in its various facets, based on primary Chinese-language sources.

China’s rise as an AI power is an event of importance to the world and a potential challenge to liberal democracies. Filling a gap in the literature, this volume is fully documented, data-driven, and presented in a scholarly format suitable for citation and for supporting downstream research, while also remaining accessible to laypersons. It brings together 15 recognized international experts to present a full treatment of Chinese artificial intelligence. The volume contains chapters on state, commercial, and foreign sources of China’s AI power; China’s AI talent, scholarship, and global standing; the impact of AI on China’s development of cutting-edge disciplines; China’s use of AI in military, cyber, and surveillance applications; AI safety, threat mitigation, and the technology’s likely trajectory. The book ends with recommendations drawn from the authors’ interactions with policymakers and specialists worldwide, aimed at encouraging AI’s healthy development in China and preparing the rest of the world to engage with it.

This book will be of much interest to students of Chinese politics, science and technology studies, security studies and international relations.

William C. Hannas is a Georgetown professor and CSET’s lead analyst. Prior to this, he was a member of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Senior Intelligence Service and a three-time recipient of its McCone Award. He is the lead author of Chinese Industrial Espionage (2013) and co-editor of China’s Quest for Foreign Technology (2020).

Huey-Meei Chang is a Research Analyst at Georgetown University and is CSET’s senior China S&T analyst. She began her career as a data analyst at Taiwan’s Academia Sinica, Institute of Biomedical Sciences and taught document analysis for more than a decade to researchers at U.S. Government agencies.