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I'm Ding Hen in Beijing.
Coming up, China calls on the U.S. to cancel Trump-era tariffs following Supreme Court rulings.
India and Brazil sign a mining pact, as the two countries target 20 billion US dollar trade in five years.
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China has called on the United States to lift its unilateral tariffs on trading partners, saying there were no winners in the trade war and that protectionism leads nowhere.
China's Commerce Ministry made a remark in response to the U.S.
Supreme Court's ruling declaring the Trump administration's tariffs illegal.
Beijing says it is assessing the court's decision and its implications.
The Commerce Ministry says facts have proven that China and the United States both stand to gain from cooperation and lose from confrontation.
So joining us now on the line is Liu Zhiqing, senior fellow with Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China.
So thank you very much for joining us today, Zhiqing.
First of all, the U.S.
Supreme Court has actually largely sided with President Donald Trump since his return to office.
But in this particular case, why do you think the court has ruled 6-3 that Trump does not have the authority to impose tariffs?
I think it's very easy to understand that such decision because, as we know, the global market or global society has already been waiting for such decision.
We know the Supreme Court has been always divided in different opinions.
But now, especially in the past weeks, we find that the major judges have already come to a conscience that these tariffs imposed by Trump is random, is irresponsible, is making chaos for the united states itself.
It's not good in in the interest of the united industrialization.
So in this way uh, the market already has expected that this decision from supreme court will be in favor of the people, that who do not like the tariff imposed by the trump Nowadays.
I think the fact already shows the right decision.
I think because of the major two reasons.
One reason is that the major stream from media and other industry partners have already agreed to oppose such tariffs by the United States.
And secondly, the fact has already showed that all these, This tariff has already made a severance for the US companies.
Nowadays from the decision announced that the US companies have already made some suits against the government, hope to get all these tariffs returned to the companies.
This fact already shows that the Supreme Court has made a right judgment, made a good decision.
In any case, we hope that this Supreme Court has enough authority to govern all these actions taken by the Trump administration.
Trump has reacted furiously to the ruling announcing forced a new 10 global duty on imports under a different legal authority, before raising it to 15 later on.
The new global duties are due to kick in on Tuesday and are expected to last 150 days.
Do you expect the new tariffs to cast a new shadow on global trade?
I think we have to understand that the decision by Trump administration is making pills for the confusion on the market.
Sometimes we have to think whether President Trump really understands or really knows what he is doing or what he has done, because he always made some Confucian decision by himself.
So nowadays, i think he tried to impose a new tariffs on in china, on the whole global market.
He doesn't know whatever or before how much tariffs he has already imposed on the market.
So nowadays they want to add new tariffs 10 or 15 percent on all partners.
All they have, all different partners or different standards he made and no any decision or clearance on this point.
That's why made the global market.
Whole community is confused and have different understanding.
So this is really causes the uncertainty And the new challenger to the market.
So when President Donald Trump announced his so-called Liberation Day tariffs last year, for example, at the time Zhiqing, did you expect that his measures would one day face some major political setbacks domestically?
On the day that he announced that so-called liberation day in the United States.
We believe that there's another new liberation day will come after to liberate that day, because they made America and also the whole global market in the darkness.
So, when the supreme court made the judgment, is a free freedom day for the united states, because at least the companies and all these economic fields they have the right rules from the supreme court to deal with.
The government and administration ask them to pay back or to return that illegal tariffs they have already imposed.
So I think that this is a real freedom day for this year, for these companies, for us enterprises.
So at the very beginning we would never believe that such illegal action can last long.
So nowadays, i think the effects already show that our conclusion are right, because nowadays trump will have more difficulties to go forward with his own tariffs policy.
Now, U.S.
Trade Representative, Jameson Greer, has told US media that the country's trade deals with China, with the European Union and with other trading partners will remain in force despite its latest Supreme Court ruling.
So what could be the implications of such a scenario for China and the EU?
I think for China and the EU, we have to wait for further explanation from the U.S. government.
Because from the information from the president and also from this trade representative, they have a different understanding or different explanation.
So what the meaning of remaining unchanged or what the meaning for the new tariffs by the president?
I think actually from the past years we know that the us government has already missed action or misconduct against the old self.
So this is very dangerous for the stability of the us economy and also have more negative impact on the us policy.
So in this way, China and the EU have to make a full study on the details of the US announcement, because we have to see what details will come.
We need sometimes one or two weeks, even one month, to see what really happened in the US administration.
But China and the EU should remain our own policy stabilized, not to follow always with the US so-called the random decision.
Yeah.
So, in a bigger picture sense Zhiqing, how can China better safeguard its legitimate interests at a time when Washington's trade policy is faced with domestic political backlashes and uncertainties?
I think China has to do its best to safeguard our own interests in two ways.
One is that China has to unite with the international global market and other partners in Europe, in Africa, in Latin America, because we know that, like Brazil, and other countries have already raised their attitude against the US decision.
This is a very important step for China to safeguard our interests, because when the whole global market stands up and raises their voices against the US random decision, this is quite important and a precondition for an equal trading partnership.
And secondly, China has to prepare for the further difficulties and further challenges that are imposed by the American side.
Because we have to deal and discuss with our trading partners in America, the companies and enterprises, to get a better deal and get a price decision.
Because, as we know, all these costs and prices will be paid by the bias in the United States.
That will make more difficulties for the US economic development itself.
We have to do our best to persuade our US partner in order to understand the real situation in china and in global market, and also in the us market because, as we know, after the china spring festival and also the major holiday in europe, in america, they will come, have to meet all these normal business activities in china and the united states.
So how to make all these tariffs in a reasonable way, in a law-ruled way?
So it's very important for China and also for the US, especially for China, to safeguard our own interests.
This is a very important policy by our government.
Thank you very much for joining us.
Liu Zhiqing, Senior Fellow of Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China.
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I'm Ding Hen in Beijing.
India and Brazil have signed a pact to expand cooperation in mining and minerals.
The agreement was signed in the presence of Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who was in India for a three-day visit.
An Indian government statement says the cooperation will focus on attracting investment in exploration, mining and steel sector infrastructure.
Modi says the two countries are committed to taking bilateral trade beyond US20 billion over the next five years.
Currently, annual two-way trade stands at about US$15 billion.
Lula is on an Asia tour, which has also taken him to South Korea.
So joining us now on the line is Dr Cao Ting, Director of Center for Latin American Studies with Fudan University.
So thank you very much for joining us today, Dr. Cao Ting.
First of all, what can Brazil offer when it comes to its mining cooperation with India?
Well, we know that Brazil's abundant iron ore resources are crucial to the Indian steel industry, because India's current crude steel production capacity reached 280 million tons, and last year the country's crude steel output reached 165 million tons is a significant increase from 100 million tons in 2020.
But domestic infrastructure construction and its industrialization still need a large demand of raw materials.
And as we know, Brazil's iron ore is important for India.
Last year, Brazil's exports of iron to India amounted to 113 billion US dollars, accounting for nearly 20 of the total exports to India.
So it's one of the most important sources of iron ore imports for India.
And India also hopes to strengthen rare earth cooperation with Brazil, because we know Brazil is an important exporter of rural earth in the world.
So India also wants to reduce the dependence on China's supply chain of the rural earth.
And currently, less than 30% of India's critical mineral reserves have been explored.
So in the future, India wants to foster the cooperation with Brazil in the sector of the exploration and production of rare earths, and Brazil has advantages in rare earths separation and processing technologies.
So cooperation between the two sides is expected to help fill India's gaps in the rare earths sector.
So, by the way, do you think mining sector cooperation can serve as a sort of spearhead when we talk about how to boost the bilateral trade between India and Brazil?
Yes, mining cooperation can indeed serve as a powerful spearhead to boost bilateral trade between India and Brazil.
Now, mining is already a significant pillar of the cooperation relationship between the two countries.
Brazil's exports of iron ore to India account for nearly 20% of its total exports to the country.
So this foundation means that any increase in mining cooperation can translate directly and immediately into higher trade figures.
And the move toward a rare earth cooperation can also elevate the relationship from a simple commercial exchange to a strategic partnership.
And instead of just selling raw materials, mining.
Cooperation between the two countries can also evolve into a more complex value chain cooperation.
And Brazil also wants to attract more investment from India and other Asian countries to develop its own manufacturing industry.
So in the future maybe india also wants to make more investment in brazil in the production processing in the iron and the rare earth.
So when president lula was in seoul as part of his asia tour, this time around Brazil also signed a slew of agreements with South Korea covering basically everything from agriculture to business cooperation.
Lula now says he is expected to meet with U.S.
President Donald Trump during the first week of March.
So what do you think could be Lula's strategic calculation in making a trip to Asia, including India and South Korea, before meeting with his US counterpart?
Well, as you mentioned, Lula wants to visit Washington in the first week of March.
So, before this visit, Alula wants to secure significant economic and other, such as technological, agreements with more countries in the world.
So India and South Korea have been the option of the visit places of Alula in this period and Lula wants to strengthen the cooperation with these two of the Asian's largest economies to diversify its commercial and technological cooperation.
So this has created a backdrop of alternative partnerships, demonstrating that Brazil has multiple options and is not dependent on any single country.
So this time we can see.
Lula visited India with a delegation of 20 ministers and 300 business leaders, targeting an increase in bilateral trade in the future, and the two countries also signed many agreements agreeing to collaborate on artificial intelligence and digital public infrastructure.
And in South Korea.
He also signed 10 MOUs covering critical minerals in the space industry and semiconductors.
And we can see that Lula also wants to send some political messages on global order during his visit to Asia.
And at a press conference in India at the end of his trip, Lula stated the message he tends to deliver to Trump.
He said, we don't want a new Cold War. and that all countries should be treated equally.
And so Lula is also positioning himself and Brazil as part of the broader coalition that rejects the bipolar or unipolar confrontational world order.
So I think these are main goals of Lula's visit to Asia.
Hmm.
Then on the part of the Indian side, we know it has signed an interim trade framework with the Trump administration, but there has been a lot of domestic opposition to this framework and trade negotiations between New Delhi and Washington is still going on.
So for India, what do you make of the meaning of deepening trade with Brazil at a time when India's trade with the United States faces uncertainties?
Well for India.
Deepening trade with Brazil at this moment is a strategically calculated move to hedge against the uncertainties in its trade relationship with the US.
Brazil is the largest commercial partner for India in Latin America, and it also has abundant reserves of iron ore and rare earths which are important for Indian infrastructure and IT industries.
So the cooperation with India can secure its critical mineral supply chain, promote its tech revolution and reduce its dependence on China in the supply of rare earths.
And the framework of cooperation also allows Indian companies to acquire mining assets in Brazil and import raw materials at zero duty.
They're actually supporting India's industrial growth.
So India deepening trade with Brazil is an important option in strategic diversification of India.
It transforms a moment of vulnerability with the US into an opportunity to lock in long-term resource security and economic growth with a reliable partner in the global south.
I mean, both India and Brazil are China's BRICS partners.
So from China's perspective, is China happy to see a closer partnership between India and Brazil?
Well, it's an interesting question.
China adheres to the foreign policy of non-interference in other countries.
Every country has the autonomy of making its own foreign policy.
As for Brazil and India, strengthening the cooperation between each other is beneficial for their development and can promote the diversification of their foreign relations.
And China has always regarded BRICS as a key platform for the Global South to pursue unity, self-improvement and promote multipolarization.
As founding members of BRICS, India and Brazil have forged closer ties and deepened cooperation in recent years, and it helps enhance the overall operational capacity and influence of BRICS and also confirms China's strategic aspiration to advance the development of the BRICS mechanism.
China, India and Brazil are all major developing countries and the three sides share highly consistent positions on such issues as opposing unilateralism, safeguarding the rights and interests of developing countries and advancing the reform of global governance.
So a closer partnership between India and Brazil can help form a stronger collective force of the global south to offset the pressure from the US.
As long as the cooperation between India and the cooperation and Brazil does not target China, undermine Brexit solidarity or form exclusive blocks, I think China will maintain a positive and open attitude towards their cooperation.
Thank you very much for joining us.
Dr. Cao Ting, Director of Center for Latin American Studies, Fudan University.
You are listening to World Today.
I'm Ding Heng in Beijing.
We'll be back after a short break.
Welcome back to World Today, our Chinese New Year edition.
I'm Ding Hen in Beijing.
China has issued draft rules that would tighten regulation of artificial intelligence services designed to simulate human personalities and engage users in emotional interaction.
The draft lays out a regulatory approach that would require providers to warn users against excessive use and to intervene when users show signs of addiction or extreme emotions.
In other words, it is targeting the potential psychological and emotional risks of AI-powered chatbots.
Why is China seriously paying attention to this field?
What does the move tell us about China's mentality in AI governance?
For these questions and more.
Joining us now on the line are Dr Li Lun, Assistant Professor of Economics at Peking University, Andy Mauck, Professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University, and Professor Yao Shujie, Deputy Director of the Department of Social Sciences Chongqing University.
Professor Li Lun, to start with you first of all, What is your main takeaway from China's proposed regulations of artificial intelligence powered chatbots?
From the regulation, I think this is definitely catching up with AI's development and advancement.
So, instead of treating AI as a tool or as a tech product, we're moving towards treating AI as a service, which means having users engaging with AI in these long, almost like a relationship-like interactions and with emotional companionship.
So this is the direction that we're heading to.
And from the regulation we're seeing protection of vulnerable groups such as minors and elderlies, who may be more susceptible to emotional dependence or manipulation.
So I think that is also one of the focus of the regulation.
Also in terms of targeting just bad content.
The regulation also target the misinformation or misleading behavior, basically to avoid users being misguided in terms of emotionally, for example, over trusting the robot, or especially being encouraged or nudging to engaging in harmful decisions or self-hurting decisions.
So I do think that this reflects a next step forward for China to treat these chatbots like a public facing emotional service, which is basically calling for higher safety bars than just ordinary tech apps or tech products.
Okay, so andy, going to you, we understand.
Actually, in 2023, chinese authorities issued a regulatory framework for generative artificial intelligence and some say, compared to that version of regulations uh, the.
This new proposed regulations targeting human-like interactive ai services represents a leap forward from content safety to emotional safety in terms of the Chinese authorities' understanding of AI governance or AI regulation.
What is your thoughts on this?
Right, Ding Hong.
This is an incredibly important topic and question.
I think what's really going on here is both simple and a little bit unsettling.
So we're watching the Internet mutate from an information system into a relationship system, as we just heard from Leland.
But for 30 years, the core product was content, pages, posts, videos, feeds.
The power came from controlling distribution and attention.
And the harms were mostly quote unquote speech harms misinformation, hate radicalization, harassment.
But now we see this new substrate emerging.
It's interactive, it's personalized, it's always on agents.
So what this means is that the product isn't a thing you read or watch.
It's something that talks back.
And once it talks back consistently, coherently with memory, the user stops treating it like media and starts treating it like a presence.
So I think what we're seeing is the strategic shift from broadcast to bonds, from exposure to relationship loops, and from what was said to what the interaction did to you, the user, over time.
And I think that's why emotional safety has suddenly become urgent as a governance category and why China's focused on this.
But here's the really important part.
Because the system can now move these four levers that matter in human life.
The first is affect, how it regulates your emotional state, what you feel.
Attachment, it affects who or what you bond with.
Thief, it shapes your world model and what you believe to be real.
And then finally, behavioral momentum, it nudges you into action or into drift.
But here's the crux here.
These levers are not inherently bad or sinister.
They're exactly the same levels.
Therapy, psychological therapy, teaching, friendship, relationship, advertising have always pulled.
The novelty here is scale, intimacy and automation, the ability to do this for millions, maybe billions of people simultaneously and personalized for each.
And this, I think, is the big picture, industrialized intimacy.
And where this leads us is a fork in the road in the best case.
AI becomes a prosthetic, something we can use to improve our lives, a crutch.
So it's a cognitive and emotional scaffold that expands people's capacity, helps them reenter the human world and make society more functional.
In the worst case, it becomes a capital, a dependency engine that replaces messy human ties with frictionless simulation, narrows people's agency and turns the public into a managed emotional service.
So I think this is something China recognizes and is addressing.
But I think it's also worth pointing out that the real fight isn't China versus the West, or innovation versus regulation, or even free speech versus censorship.
It's really a deeper contest over what kind of civilization we build when relationship itself becomes a mass-produced technology.
Okay, so this is a civilizational matter in your opinion, Andy.
That's a very interesting observation.
So, Professor Yao, we know China has proposed.
The regulations we are talking about here actually mirror several provisions in a law passed in the US state of California in 2025.
The law requires I mean the law in California requires stronger content restrictions, reminders to users that they're speaking to a non-human AI, as well as emergency protocols for discussions regarding suicide, for example.
And also somewhat relevant here is that the European Union's AI Act imposes robust requirements surrounding emotional recognition AI, placing this into either the high risk or the prohibited use category.
So what do you think they tell us about a sort of global concern about AI's emotional impact on human beings?
Yeah, it is a global concern and you mentioned the state of California in the United States, the EU and also China.
These three economic blocs.
They are also the major inventors and applications of AI technology in the current stage.
We do face the issue that we mentioned that human beings would depend directly on AI to resolve lots of problems that individuals or a group of individual human beings cannot do, but the AI could do and could do better, more precisely and efficiently.
It helps human activities, it increases the productivity of human beings and also enhances the living experiences of most people.
However, AI development is something very different from other technologies, especially talking about the emotional aspect.
Because emotional aspects, as we fit into the AI, AI is not a human being.
It actually absorbs the information you provided to the machine.
And the machine will digest the information.
And if the information is some sort of personal bias, for example, if someone has a mental issue, someone who gets stressed, and they try to resort to the AI but fit into the wrong information, which directed the AI to give the even more erosive information to the person who fit into the information.
It could generate some more even radical actions provided to the person who are communicating with the chatbot. and this could actually exacerbate the kinds of emotional actions by the uh the human being so that we have to uh from the technological point of view we have to have a safety you know standards uh for example uh if the ai generative ai getting too far away then it have to stop somewhere And this is why China, the state of California and EU in particular, where there are some sorts of incidences which are not desirable.
So these kinds of incidences and the undesirable consequences have to fit back to the design of the AI to make sure that AI is helpful rather than making harmful, misleading feedback to the person, the individuals who are discussing with AI to resolve their own problem.
Andy Sam Altman, CEO of chat GPT operator OpenAI, once openly admitted, in September 2025, that One of the most difficult issues for his company is how its chat GPT responds to suicide-related conversations.
And we know OpenAI is currently facing a lawsuit filed by a family in the United States after their teenage son died by suicide.
So, in your opinion, from the perspective of chatbot operators such as OpenAI and many other companies here in China or in the United States, what can be done to address this difficult issue?
So I think there's two ways to look at this.
First of all, If we think of generative AI as a transformational, general purpose technology, casualties people dying, people being hurt are unavoidable.
So if we look back to say, steam engines, when steam was first becoming a thing to drive the Industrial Revolution, they blew up.
They killed people.
We look at electricity similarly.
Once it was being rolled out commercially and to residential applications, there were problems people getting hurt, people getting killed, automobiles as well.
So on the one hand, this is inevitable with any new transformative technology.
On the other hand obviously governments companies, individuals need to take steps to minimize the harm.
And I think here's the issue.
It would be wrong.
It would be a category error to think about this like the Internet, as I mentioned earlier.
So there's a couple of points I think it's worth raising here.
First, this kind of human like interaction isn't content.
It's a relationship interface and relationships create duty.
So I think that's the first.
The second is that emotions are a control surface.
So whoever shapes mood, attachment, and belief shapes behavior.
And of course, we're seeing this in this instance with suicide being one behavior.
But here trust is the product and the words are just the delivery mechanism, meaning that if you don't trust the chatbot, you probably won't listen to it, and then safety is about the outcomes and not the intentions.
I think here this is where i think uh, open ai, perhaps other companies might have some legal exposure.
So i'm not a lawyer, but you know, just here you're just kind of as an analyst that's been following the space for many, many years.
I think the idea here is that we didn't mean it is not a safety standard.
So I think we see the world converging.
You know, we talked about California.
I think China obviously is in a leadership role here, really recognizing that this is categorically something new and an entirely new legal regime.
Perhaps new legal principles need to be brought to bear if we're going to more effectively regulate.
And here it's important to minimize the harm because I don't think it can completely be eliminated.
As I mentioned, for any transformational general purpose technology, there will always be casualties, I believe.
And, you know, the goal here is not you can't eliminate them, but you can only minimize.
So, Professor Yao Shujie, in a bigger picture sense, Do you think it is an exaggerated statement when some prominent AI researchers argue that super intelligent AI could one day destroy humanity?
Why or why not?
Yeah, this is a very hot issue for debate.
Some people do concern that ultimately, AI would totally, you know, replace human being or even destroy human being.
But in my view this is a very unlikely situation, because human beings are generally more clever than anything on Earth.
And AI is, after all, it is designed by human beings.
AI take over too much activity, take over state of human activities, then human would have to consider a more clever way of containing the activity of AI.
Right from the beginning of development.
I think every country, every company already has very strong ethical issues, including biotechnology, when we talk about corona.
Up to now, we do not allow scientists to corona human beings.
And if human beings could be corona, it could have some unthinkable consequences.
Likewise, if AI technology is going to develop without any control, any ethical standards or any limit on what AI could do then yes, it could lead to some sort of unthinkable disaster situation.
But I think human being government, community and the scientific circles, they got to have some sort of standards.
This standard including security, security to protect at least the kinds of human life on Earth.
Without this kind of standard?
Yes, it could be.
Possibly some people inventing some machine and let this machine run on the street and murder people.
Then there will be the kinds of consequences that we do not like.
You know, whatever machine we innovated, whatever machine we run on the street, they have to be controlled.
Otherwise, there would be some unthinkable outcomes.
And this is my belief that you know, whatever AI is developed, it would be still controlled by human beings.
It must be controlled by human beings after all.
Okay, so Professor Li Lun China's planned rules we're talking about here would mark the world's first ever national level effort to regulate human-like interactive AI services.
Over the long term or over the longer term, is this positioning China as a sort of pace setter or global standard setter in terms of emotional AI governance?
Yeah, I think that's very likely because right now we're seeing, you know, the proposal is basically the first national level attempt to basically specifically target these human like interaction with AI.
So these type of service that AI is providing.
So I think the reason why we're seeing that is that you know, the scale of the application for China's new products and new services are really massive.
So this makes It very urgent for governance and, you know, regulation to to keep pace with the adoption.
So, for example, we're seeing a lot of you know Ai chat bots or you know Ai robots that, with the chat bots embodied into them, being already used in, for example, in education with kids and sometimes with the elderly as well.
And in the future, when the humanoid robot is being developed and the cost is reduced, of course, we're going to see more of this interaction between the AI and the elderly as well.
So I think having these national guidelines or having this initial attempt to kind of target these interactions, is very meaningful.
And the reason is that I think, for example, if China's rule becomes very clear and practical and, for example, when we encounter problems that the users encountered, we can export these rules to other countries, to other platforms and app stores and to become even cross-border governance scenarios or open up more discussion for global AI governance.
So right now, I think having a lot of... Of course, we're already...
X.Y.
Observing some of the you know misuses of Ai services.
For example, one example that I remember is that sometimes buyers of products e commerce platforms, will you know, use Ai to basically photoshop or, you know, counterfeit some of the malfunctioning parts of, for example, the device they bought, or they will use AI to put mold on the food they bought so that they can have a refund of the good without returning the good.
So, in terms of AI interaction with human beings, we need to have basically the guidelines to kind of prevent these things from happening in the future as well.
So, Professor Yao, in order to provide people with a stronger protection against human-like interactive AI services' potential negative impacts, what else do you think China can do, or should do as well, in addition to addressing those regulatory issues surrounding AI chatbots?
Well, I think the major solution for China to play a bigger role is China to do more research and more leading research in the AI area.
For example, if China is more capable of doing more innovative research in the AI area, China would have more say in terms of setting up the international global standards for technological progress, as well as for arguing for a certain standard for AI applications at the global level.
Andy just pointed out a very important point.
If some country is dominating the world, far more dominant than any other country, then some country has a permanent hegemony over the other countries.
China could be potentially a leading nation, but China may not move up to the standard of fully dominating the world.
So this means that China, the United States EU, Japan and other leading nations.
They have to work together in a coordinated, collaborative way rather than a direct competition.
One country winning everything and the other country are lagging behind.
AI in particular is more important than any other technology of human being on Earth up to now.
You can have Apple controlling the mobile phone.
You can have Microsoft controlling the Windows system.
You can have Amazon controlling for the online shopping system.
You can have Meta controlling on the global medium.
The United States already have enough dominant powers in all the internet area.
And if the United States have the totally dominant powers in AI, then there will be something rather fairly interesting which some people may not like.
So I think China should take this opportunity to be able to have this innovation in the AI stage, at least to be able to go hand in hand with some leading nations such as the United States and Europe.
So some sort of multi-level technological cooperation and competition, to lead to the point that it is not a pure monopoly.
It should be a golemopoly, in a sense.
And this oligopoly.
They set up these kinds of global standards and regulations.
They should have a common uh you know ethical standards that whatever development in the ai is going to benefit all the people, is going to benefit all the countries and all the human being.
This is a very um you know difficult task.
In order to have doing a good contribution to finishing this task, I think China got to be leading in many areas.
And the leading is not to dominance.
The leading is to help.
The leading is to create a global, inclusive development for all the countries in the world.
So Andy China's proposed regulations on human-like interactive AI services actually came shortly after two leading Chinese AI chatbot startups, ZI and Minimax, filed for initial public offering in Hong Kong.
And, of course, their IPOs in Hong Kong, are pointing to the rapid growth of human-like interactive AI services.
So, in terms of boosting AI innovation while at the same time mitigating AI technologies social risks, do you think China is capable of doing both at the same time?
The short answer, Ding Hong, is yes.
And I'll go back to just to touch on a couple of things I said earlier.
I think first of all from an institutional governance perspective.
I think there's little doubt globally that China's ability to implement regulations policies laws, I think really is unparalleled, especially for such a large country.
And because it's such a large company, whatever happens in China will have a global impact.
I think the content again, as I touched on traditional Chinese philosophy values yin-yang thinking.
I say also Confucianism I'm not going to go into here, but really again helps with the content of how we should regulate.
But very importantly, I think, China has shown its remarkable ability to diffuse new technology at scale right.
Look at electric vehicles, look at solar panels.
But also the innovation ability, especially in this area as well.
And I just want to mention kind of a brief story.
So Li Kaifu and Chen Qiufan wrote a book called AI 2041 with a number of stories about how AI may look.
And one of the things I think is really important, because we were talking about AI as social companions for people that are lonely, romantic companions.
I think a very important area is child raising.
Because one of the stories in this book.
They talk about how children, pretty much when they're born, will have a permanent AI agent accompany them 24-7, curating what they should learn, when they should be doing certain things.
Now, of course again, we could see this as a kind of a prosthetic in it that it really is very valuable, broadens human capacity.
We can also see it as becoming a capital as well, making the children prisoners in certain ways.
And this is exactly, I think, the thing that needs to be regulated as we see more and more of these implications of agentic AI come online.
And I think China again is uniquely positioned to lead in this area, again because it has the capacity to implement regulations.
It has, in my view uh, good content based on traditional chinese philosophy values, and then also because of the rapid clock speed, how quickly products iterate here, how quickly they're adopted, that china's going to gain much more experience in real time as well to really have a grounded sense of what is the most effective way to regulate this.
Thank you very much for joining us.
Li Lun, Assistant Professor of Economics at Peking University, Andy Mauck, Professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University, and Professor Yao Shujie, Deputy Director of the Department of Social Sciences Chongqing University.
That's all the time for this edition of World Today.
A quick recap of today's headlines.
China calls on the U.S. to cancel Trump-era tariffs following Supreme Court ruling.
India and Brazil sign a mining pact as the two countries target $20 billion trade in five years.
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I'm Dinghan in Beijing.
Thank you so much for listening.
Bye for now.
