Description: US Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, met with Chinese Vice Premier, He Lifeng in New York, ahead of the UN General Assembly and the separate leaders’ meeting between Trump and Xi. Bessent and Lifeng discussed the ongoing trade truce, AI competition and guardrails on the technology and the establishment of bilateral communication mechanisms. AI was the most discussed subject, after several big – tech executives have repeatedly warned over the past month regarding the dangers of unregulated frontier AI development. On trade, Bessent and Lifeng stated that the groundwork for the meeting between Trump and Xi has been set while other mutual concessions were also discussed.
Impact: The meeting between Bessent and Lifeng is highly likely a prelude where the officials discussed what should the leaders’ meeting achieve and the exact topics of discussion. On the subject of AI, the US and China are likely to establish a formal regulation mechanism which considering their technological and strategic rivalry would take years to implement and is likely to be circumvented by the companies developing the capacities in both countries. Repeated warnings from tech executives such as Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, are likely going to pressure the US tech giants to heavily regulate AI development, despite Trump denouncing such regulations. This would highly likely include numerous guardrails in developing frontier AI capacities which could endanger critical infrastructure by launching autonomous cyberattacks. China is unlikely to constrain its development, unless it sees honest commitment from the US, which positions the meeting between Trump and Xi to be another formal extension of the trade ceasefire as both countries pursue strategic dominance.