China's Foreign Ministry Calls for U.S.-China AI Cooperation - Rejects U.S. Model-Distillation Allegations

Highlights

• China's Foreign Ministry denied U.S. accusations that Chinese AI firms extracted capabilities from American frontier models via distillation.
• Spokesperson Mao Ning framed China's AI progress as self-reliant and called for stronger U.S.-China AI cooperation.
• REEx analysis links AI competition to critical minerals, rare-earth magnets, and the physical supply chains underpinning AI infrastructure.
• Beijing's response avoided calls for technological decoupling, instead emphasizing open and inclusive AI development.
• The strategic contest is shifting from who builds the smartest model to who controls the industrial ecosystem needed to deploy AI at scale.