The affs depiction of AI as a security threat recreates ai as bigger threat by undermining cooperation.

Third, in connection with the above paragraph, the domestic inward-looking nationalistic trend that securitization has created hinders China’s realization of global leadership. To lead AI in the global arena, China must provide public goods and win support from others through successful partnerships. It must play a key role in promoting global governance and, as a global leader, act according to common interests rather than solely national interests. However, a security focused, inward-looking, nationalistic AI discourse is helpful to neither global governance nor common interests. For example, it can foster the rise of inward looking national AI policies that prioritize national interests over those of the globalized world. This is in direct contrast to global governance goals, i.e., to build a shared future through global solidarity. Indeed, many of the problems that AI has created, such as those relating to ethics, represent collective challenges to humankind that require a globally concerted response. Inward-looking national AI policies may contribute to a fragmented global governance structure, and thus obstruct concerted global actions to address AI problems. Fourth, the securitization trend has reinforced technological rivalry at the expense of the potential for global AI cooperation, and will likely exacerbate the United States–China confrontation. This is not to deny the existence of United States–China cooperation in the field of AI. However, by speaking of AI in the language of security and a global race, the relevant security AI discourse emphasizes competition over cooperation and destruction over creation. This may produce a real security threat, and perhaps an actual global AI race, thus undermining the space for cooperation from which both the United States and China can benefit. In other words, the rivalry discourse adopts a zero-sum geopolitical angle for understanding AI innovation that is inevitably to the latter’s detriment in both countries. 127 More importantly, securitization may push AI further into the hard security area by virtue of its military applications. The securitizing actor tends to exaggerate the security threat to achieve a successful securitization, so enhancing the strategic risks of AI military practices and increasing the likelihood of war, and of escalating ongoing conflicts. In this regard, a highly securitized AI politics may set China and the United States on a dangerous path towards a catastrophic confrontation that imperils everyone’s interests and security. In the worst case scenario, as in all arms races, blithe assertions about the inevitability of AI-enabled war are a self-fulfilling and self-defeating prophecy. In this regard, the aforementioned Fu Ying’s call to regulate AI’s military application merits more attention. Lastly, by strengthening state involvement in China’s AI industry, securitization may undermine the interests of Chinese AI companies. The boundary between the state and the market is always far less defined in China than in other countries, due to China’s political environment. Making AI a national security matter justifies the necessity for heavier state involvement, if not control. Although a blessing in the Chinese domestic market, close ties with the state are a burden on the global stage. Take the aforementioned civil-military integration as an example. Although helpful in gaining China’s AI companies and research institutes more state funding, it undermines their global access. Close relations with the Chinese government have caused certain Chinese AI companies, including members of the “national AI team of China,” to be subjected to punishment, in the form of the aforementioned American sanctions. In this regard, securitization could hinder the access of China’s AI companies to the global market, and hence their future development. It also remains to be seen whether heavier state involvement in the AI industry hinders market efficiency. Above all, a key critique of the Copenhagen School of security studies is its Europe-centric approach to security. For the community of international relations, China’s rise is a topic that truly international relations theories cannot and should not avoid. This article contributes to the development of the Copenhagen School’s global agenda by studying the Chinese case. To find the explanatory power of securitization in a Chinese context is a challenging but necessary step for the Copenhagen School of security studies. This article shows that securitization theory can be helpful in studying the security politics of AI in China. Although legitimacy and authority operate very differently here, the central government nevertheless needs rigorous security discourses to convince domestic actors and thus realize its AI agenda. But difficulties do arise when applying securitization in China’s authoritarian context. As this article shows, the challenges lie in measuring the exact impact of securitization in light of China’s statesociety relations, because differentiating such impact from state coercion and other economic-political incentives can be difficult. Moreover, given AI’s growing importance, it deserves greater attention from critical security analysts. This article mainly focuses on the Chinese domestic securitization of AI, i.e., how China labels AI as a Chinese domestic security matter. Securitizing China’s AI, however, also has an international dimension. As mentioned, China’s ambitious AI plan has produced popular policy discourses on the global stage about its potential implications for others, for example, a forthcoming Chinese AI supremacy, or a global AI race. In this regard, a China threat security agenda with regard to AI is clearly emerging on the global stage. How, for example, are actors in the United States and Europe labeling China’s AI advancement as a security threat and thus requesting AI’s strategic prioritization? With AI’s rapid development—not least its use in warfare—and increasingly competitive geopolitics, AI’s securitization trend merits more attention.