AI Safety and Governance Issues to Be Key Agenda Items at US-China Summit on the 24th

[Financial News] Issues regarding artificial intelligence (AI) safety and governance have emerged as a key agenda item for the U.S.-China summit scheduled for the 24th (local time) in Washington, D.C. On the 20th, the economic leaders of both sides will intensively coordinate related agenda items in New York.
According to the Financial Times (FT) and others on the 16th, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and United States Trade Representative (USTR) Jamieson Greer will meet with a Chinese delegation led by Vice Premier of China He Lifeng in New York on the 20th. This meeting is seen as a final preliminary meeting to narrow differences between the two countries ahead of the summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping to be held in Washington, D.C. on the 24th.
They will also focus on coordinating China's rare earth export controls and the extension of the trade war truce.

President Donald Trump is scheduled to hold a summit with President Xi Jinping at the White House on the 24th and also host a state dinner. With NVIDIA Corporation CEO Jensen Huang set to attend, attention is focused on his role and remarks regarding issues such as AI.
NVIDIA Corporation's business in China has appeared unstable in recent years, caught between the U.S. and China's rivalry for dominance in AI and semiconductors. The Trump administration banned the sale of NVIDIA Corporation's AI chips to China early last year amid the tariff war, but began allowing the sale of the high-performance H800 chip early this year.
Regarding AI safety and governance issues, the U.S. and China agreed to launch an AI intergovernmental dialogue during their summit last May. President Donald Trump stated at the time that the two leaders discussed the issue of AI safeguards. However, since then, the two countries have not been able to hold high-level meetings regarding AI issues.
United States Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent emphasized at the hearing, "AI is the most important technology of this century, and the United States must maintain its leadership."
He also raised the claim that Chinese AI models are 'distilling' American models, arguing that "distillation is a polite and scientific way of saying to steal." Model distillation is an AI training technique that utilizes the output results of large models to train smaller and more efficient models.
Previously, the National Security Agency (NSA), the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) claimed that major Chinese AI companies engaged in aggressive and malicious distillation activities on an "industrial scale."
China categorically denied the allegations.

Meanwhile, this is President Xi Jinping’s first visit to Washington, D.C. since 2016. President Xi Jinping held talks with then-President Joe Biden in San Francisco in 2023 and met with President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago Resort in Florida in 2017. President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping also held a summit in China last May.
United States Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent stated at a hearing of the U.S. House Financial Services Committee the previous day, "We have been having very good private discussions with China," adding, "I look forward to meeting with my Chinese counterpart, Vice Premier of China He Lifeng, this weekend to continue the discussions."
The U.S. and China agreed to temporarily suspend retaliatory measures, such as the imposition of tariffs and export controls, following the Busan summit last October. China suspended stringent export restrictions on rare earths and key minerals.
The 'trade war truce' agreed upon by the leaders of the two countries expires in November.
China is demanding that the Busan Agreement be extended for the remainder of President Donald Trump's term. On the other hand, the United States is negative about this, citing that China is not fully fulfilling its commitments regarding rare earths.
The U.S. and China are also coordinating the details of the "Trade Commission" they agreed to establish at the Beijing summit last May. The Trade Commission is set to be responsible for selecting items for which tariffs can be lowered in sectors not directly related to national security.
[email protected] Lee Seok-woo, International Specialist Reporter