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Bernard Chan

I travelled to Zurich, Switzerland, last month to attend the Asia Leaders Series, a forum designed to foster candid exchange between Europe and Asia, offering policymakers, economists and business leaders a trusted setting to engage seriously with global challenges.
The event took place on the eve of the World Economic Forum meeting. I was asked to moderate a session on a topic that was hardly novel: US-China rivalry.
I approached the event with modest expectations. Strategic competition between Washington and Beijing has dominated forums for years. Numerous panels have examined trade wars, export controls and military tensions. It often feels as though the arguments recycle themselves. I wondered what more could be said. Yet the discussion proved unexpectedly revealing.
One former senior diplomat challenged the mood of anxiety that often frames such debates. Today’s world, he argued, may feel chaotic, but history suggests otherwise. Periods of strain in the international order are not aberrations; they are closer to the norm. Alliances come under pressure. Rivalries intensify. The system adjusts.
He reminded those present of 1972. During the Cold War, the United States and China found a way to open dialogue despite ideological differences. What made that breakthrough possible was not trust or shared values, but a shared strategic concern: the Soviet Union.
That observation prompted a broader question: if a shared adversary once brought Washington and Beijing into alignment, what, if anything, might play a comparable role today?


Participants returned to the same answer. It was not a country, a military bloc or any kind of traditional security threat. It was artificial intelligence (AI).
AI’s disruptive impact is already evident in everyday life. It affects how information flows, how decisions are made in finance and logistics, and how citizens interact with the state and with one another. That immediacy may explain why governments that agree on little have moved towards acknowledging a shared responsibility and a greater understanding that AI carries serious, even catastrophic, risks if left unchecked.
The stakes are unusually high. Many experts believe advanced AI could become both an unprecedented security risk and one of humanity’s greatest accelerators of progress – compressing decades of scientific and medical breakthroughs into years. Yet the same systems could be misused or escape meaningful oversight.
For businesses, the danger lies less in flawed outputs than in weak governance. Regulators are unlikely to accept “the algorithm did it” as a defence. Those who invest early in credible oversight may ultimately gain not only protection but also trust.




But recognising the risks is easier than agreeing on who should manage them. The discussion in Zurich underscored the extent of the unresolved issues. While China and the US dominate AI through their concentration of expertise, funding and computing power, both face challenges. Advanced AI relies on vast data centres that consume enormous amounts of energy.
In China, the rapidly expanding digital infrastructure is being channelled through energy efficiency. Beijing is pushing new data centres to meet increased efficiency standards and renewable energy benchmarks, rather than simply adding capacity.
In the US, many proposed facilities face community pushback and grid-planning challenges as concerns grow about their footprint and the strain they place on electricity networks.
The future cannot be secured through rivalry alone. Export controls and energy pressures may intensify competition, but efficiency, safety standards and responsible deployment are shared concerns. Framing AI purely as a geopolitical contest is perilous and overlooks the essential role of cooperation.


That matters for smaller, open and trade-dependent economies like Hong Kong, which stand to benefit from AI advances but also face risks if global rules fragment.
The mood in Zurich was not naive. No one believed US-China ties would suddenly become harmonious, or that AI would resolve the grievances that exist between the two countries and their allies. Yet the discussions offered a quieter, more hopeful insight. In a world where many people feel compelled to choose sides, AI may signal that some challenges transcend borders and answer to no flag.
Recognising this does not require anyone to abandon their interests or values. It does, however, pose the question: if rivals could meet in 1972 to manage a shared threat, can’t today’s leaders sit together to shape the rules for technology that will affect everyone?
For the millions whose jobs, information and security will be affected by the choices made in Beijing and Washington, even incremental cooperation would mark a small but meaningful step towards a more stable future and an acknowledgement that we are in this together.


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If Beijing and Washington could meet in 1972 to manage a shared threat, today’s leaders can cooperate to shape the rules of AI


If Beijing and Washington could meet in 1972 to manage a shared threat, today’s leaders can cooperate to shape the rules of AI.


Artificial intelligence (AI)

Diplomacy

Technology

China technology

Energy

Renewable energy

Jobs

AI: Geopolitics

AI: Industry Trends

AI: Policy

US-China trade war

World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos

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Expresses the views, ideas and conclusions of the author. (Eg. Enough of Crazy Rich Asians, think of crazy poor Hongkongers.)


US and China can again find common ground – in AI’s risks

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}If Beijing and Washington could meet in 1972 to manage a shared threat, today’s leaders can cooperate to shape the rules of AI

If Beijing and Washington could meet in 1972 to manage a shared threat, today’s leaders can cooperate to shape the rules of AI