China’s development of AI is defensive – their ev is media speculation.

Media reports of an AI arms race between the U.S. and China have proliferated in 2017,153 and leading thinkers have identified AI as a technology that could provide a decisive strategic advantage in the international security realm.154 In contrast, much of the Chinese academic literature discussing military possibilities for AI technology has been largely abstract and speculative, and a majority of it references or focuses on the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s activities.155 Chinese military institutions, such as the NUDT, have increased their research efforts on intelligent robotics.156 In the short-term, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) will likely continue to adopt a range of unmanned vehicles into all four services (Army, Navy, Air Force, and Rocket Force).157 Combined with breakthroughs in UAV swarming and intelligentized missiles, these developments could challenge the U.S. military presence in the Pacific theater.

In the long-term, China’s AI development could revolutionize its conduct of military affairs. Although material evidence for Chinese militarization of AI is limited, some rhetorical evidence does show that China sees AI as a revolutionary military technology. In a statement on the central government’s work report by Lieutenant General Liu Guozhi, director of the Central Military Commission’s Science and Technology Commission, he states, in reference to military applications of AI, that the world is “on the eve of a new scientific and technological revolution,” and “whoever doesn’t disrupt will be disrupted!”158 Combined with AI’s dual-use nature, China’s high degree of civil-military fusion has raised concerns about the military applications of AI. Li Deyi, as a quintessential example, is both the director of the Chinese Association for Artificial Intelligence and a major general in the PLA.159 To emphasize, many of these projections are largely speculative as the most sensitive military AI applications are not publicly disclosed. There is not a coherent consensus of ideas on AI in warfare within the PLA. Moreover, the influence of the PLA is not overwhelming, as other bureaucratic entities often have diverging views and the central party apparatus possesses final decision-making powers.

The degree to which China’s militarization will constitute a revolution in military affairs is an important question. Drawing from Chinese-language, open-source articles by military scholars, a recent report by Elsa Kania, at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), argues that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) views AI as a “trump card” technology that could revolutionize the conduct of future warfare.160 As the CNAS report acknowledges, the thinking of the PLA and the central government on the direction of military AI is not solidified. Evidence from the PLA’s investment in UAV swarming and intelligentized missiles shows that the most immediate applicationsof military AI could align with more limited, defensive goals, including asymmetric countering of U.S. military superiority in the Western Pacific and protecting China’s nuclear deterrent.161