AIBRIEF
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent proposed a US China AI incident notification channel at Sunday's New York talks; Vice Premier He Lifeng left without commenting before the Thursday summit.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent proposed a bilateral channel for Washington and Beijing to flag AI incidents that escalate to a national-security level, following Sunday talks in New York with Chinese Vice-Premier He Lifeng. The mechanism, which Bessent said the US is putting on the table for Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping to consider at their Thursday-Friday Washington summit, would center on a standing AI dialogue and a notification system for "common goals and common threats."
He Lifeng and China's chief trade negotiator Li Chenggang left the JPMorgan Chase headquarters meeting without speaking to media, leaving Beijing's position publicly unstated.
Trump and Xi first discussed potential AI consultations in May in Beijing, but that forum was never formalised. The new proposal is the second attempt, and it arrives with no public Chinese response on the record.
US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said export controls on advanced AI chips and semiconductor manufacturing equipment were deliberately kept off the AI mechanism's agenda, narrowing what the channel would cover. He framed Sunday's talks as groundwork for a "successful summit" and pointed to a separate process to "operationalise" tariff cuts on a small set of non-strategic goods, including Chinese consumer and low-tech items, via a new "Board of Trade."
The proposal now waits on the Chinese side's public posture, and on whether the summit gives it the political weight to survive.