Accusations that Chinese labs cheat by copying US models are misleading. The practice, known as distillation, is common across the industry (including by Elon Musk's xAI) and academia. Now, with Chinese labs dominating open source, American startups are increasingly building on top of Chinese models.

The common Western argument that regulating AI is futile because "China will never slow down" is a misconception. China's government and research community actively engage with AI safety, even implementing policies that have slowed down their own companies in the name of safety.

In China, mayors and governors are promoted based on their ability to meet national priorities. As AI safety becomes a central government goal, these local leaders are now incentivized to create experimental zones and novel regulatory approaches, driving bottom-up policy innovation that can later be adopted nationally.

Chinese AI labs operate in a highly collaborative open-source ecosystem, treating it as shared R&D. They openly learn from and build upon each other's breakthroughs, creating a "collegial competition" that pushes the entire industry forward faster than isolated, closed-source efforts could.

Established Chinese tech giants like Alibaba and Tencent are more focused on AI safety than their startup counterparts. This is attributed to having more to lose, more mature institutional cultures, and a stronger desire to stay in the government's good graces, while startups primarily race to catch up.

In China, academics have significant influence on policymaking, partly due to a cultural tradition that highly values scholars. Experts deeply concerned about existential AI risks have briefed the highest levels of government, suggesting that policy may be less susceptible to capture by commercial tech interests compared to the West.

Facing compute and capital shortages, Chinese AI labs don't pioneer frontier research. They wait for Western labs to publish breakthroughs, likening it to 'knowing the answer to the homework,' then work backwards to replicate them, focusing resources on efficient post-training.

A US-style "Project Glasswing" for AI safety is unlikely in China because its major tech firms (Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance) are fierce rivals. Unlike in the US, where a lab could partner with a company like Microsoft, Chinese conglomerates would refuse to hand over proprietary model technology to direct competitors, whom they actively poach from and have long-standing rivalries with.

A guiding philosophy in China's AI ecosystem is the "45-degree line," a concept where safety measures and standards should rise in direct proportion to AI capabilities. This pragmatic approach avoids over-investing in safety for non-existent capabilities while ensuring safeguards keep pace with advancements.