The United States has proposed a notification mechanism with China for artificial intelligence incidents that could affect national security, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said after talks with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in New York.
The proposal comes before President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are scheduled to hold a summit in Washington on Thursday, where artificial intelligence is expected to be high on the agenda.
Bessent met He on Sunday at JPMorgan Chase's headquarters in New York. The discussions lasted around eight hours and included Jamieson Greer, the top US trade official. Bessent described the talks as “successful”.
He said the proposed arrangement would be called the “US-China AI dialogue”. “The US has proposed that we have a notification mechanism between the two countries,” Bessent said.
The notifications would concern potential AI incidents or situations that rise to a national security level. Bessent said greater openness was important between the two countries.
“We think that, just like with any cross-border activity, that moving from opaque to more transparency between the number one and the number two AI powers in the world is very important,” he said.
The public accounts of the meeting did not set out the mechanism's scope, the types of incidents that would require a notification, or a timetable for putting it in place. It is also unclear which agencies would oversee it, whether China has formally accepted the proposal, and how it would relate to existing diplomatic or defence communication channels.
The issue has been under discussion between Trump and Xi before. When Xi hosted Trump in Beijing in May, collaboration on artificial intelligence was among the matters discussed by the two leaders.
Sunday's meeting also dealt with trade, including plans to “operationalise” a process to identify potential tariff cuts on goods called the Board of Trade. A truce in the tariff war between the world's two biggest economies is due to expire on 10 November.
China agreed to buy Boeing jets and US agricultural goods in exchange for lower tariffs. Xinhua, the Chinese state news agency, said the latest discussions involved “candid, in-depth and constructive exchanges on key economic and trade issues”.
Both sides agreed to meet again. Bessent said the talks “help lay the groundwork for President Trump to advance America's economic interests and deliver results for the American people”.
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