Anthropic (a leading US artificial intelligence company) CEO Dario Amodei published a blog post this month urging a global pause on the development of the most powerful AI models, arguing it would improve safety — but the proposal has met swift rejection from China, whose officials, state media, and engineers characterised it as an attempt to entrench American technological supremacy and keep China's capabilities in check. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun called the appeal "fear-mongering, confrontation and vicious competition," while Chinese engineers publicly questioned why the US should set the terms of global AI development. The dispute highlights a deepening divide over who governs AI's trajectory, even as analysts note the two countries share more underlying concerns about AI risks than their competing rhetoric suggests.