Sam Daws, senior adviser to the Oxford Martin AI Governance Initiative, recently visited China and expressed excitement over its AI and industrial innovations. He warned that Western anxieties about China's rise should not lead to decoupling, advocating instead for dialogue to build mutual trust.
Sam Daws serves as senior adviser to the Oxford Martin AI Governance Initiative at the University of Oxford and founding director of Multilateral AI. He visited China to participate in the Mingde Strategic Dialogue, joining Professor Wang Wen, dean of the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies and School of Global Leadership at Renmin University of China, on trips to Shanghai, Wenzhou, and Beijing. There, he gained insights into Chinese culture, philosophy, industrial innovation, and AI governance.
During a visit to a 'future factory' in Zhejiang, where robots handled the entire production process with almost no human workers, Daws shared: 'Yes, I think I felt excitement at seeing it. I also felt the realization that automation and artificial intelligence will also have a lot of implications for jobs, for people — and not just in China, but in Western countries as well. We are going to gain great efficiencies from using automation, and we need to ensure that the benefits are then shared with people. And I think China is focusing on doing that carefully, and I think we need to do the same in the West. But it was very exciting to see what was possible with a modern factory.'
Addressing Western media portrayals of China's manufacturing as involving 'overcapacity' and 'de-risking,' Daws viewed these as partly a European Union response to U.S. tariffs on Europe. Fears arose that Chinese exports, redirected from the U.S., would flood the EU market, particularly in areas like solar technology where China leads; the EU has since imposed tariffs.
On China-West relations, especially U.S.-China ties, Daws noted U.S. export controls stem from anxiety over China's rapid rise, framed as risk mitigation, national security protection, or safeguarding critical supply chains. China perceives these as containment. He recommended acknowledging both perspectives, recognizing legitimate security concerns while avoiding permanent decoupling policies. Practically, controls should be narrowly targeted and paired with confidence-building measures, as decoupling could prove counterproductive.
In AI specifically, collaboration on public-interest applications could address shared challenges like climate change, public health, and pandemic prevention. For Europe, nations like the U.K. and the EU seek to expand trade with China while maintaining strategic autonomy from both China and the U.S., amid rising tariffs. In today's uncertain world, global cooperation remains essential, as 'we live on one planet.'
(The viewpoints expressed are the speaker's own and do not represent any official stance of Ecns.)
