During the 23rd Shangri-La Dialogue (SLD) in Singapore, China articulated a firm stance on integrating artificial intelligence into military operations, calling for the establishment of legally binding international rules to govern its use. According to Global Times, the Chinese delegation, led by Meng Xiangqing, emphasized the critical need to maintain human oversight over lethal autonomous weapons systems, warning of the catastrophic risks of delegating life-and-death decisions to algorithms.
China’s Position at the SLD
While China’s defense minister, Dong Jun, did not attend the event, the delegation of experts and scholars actively participated in the discussions, with AI emerging as a central theme. Speaking at a parallel session on AI development on May 30, Meng stated unequivocally that “the final decision-making authority over weapon systems must remain in human hands.” He further clarified that China “opposes the development and use of lethal intelligent weapons that lack human control.” To underscore the urgency of the issue, Meng invoked stark imagery, warning that “allowing algorithms to control matters of life and death could very likely lead to technological loss of control, and even turn scenes from the US film The Terminator into reality.”
China’s position at the SLD aligns with its broader diplomatic efforts to shape the global governance of AI. The country has already submitted a position paper on regulating military AI under the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) and has stated its support for “reaching a legally binding international instrument when conditions are mature.” Reuters reported that this push for international regulation comes amid escalating geopolitical tensions, particularly with the United States. US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also spoke at the SLD on May 30, stating that the US would not allow China to dominate Asia, though he did not specifically address the question of military AI governance.
The Dual-Use Dilemma
The discussions at the Shangri-La Dialogue highlight the complex dual-use nature of artificial intelligence. While AI offers significant potential for economic growth and societal advancement, its military applications present profound ethical and security challenges. China’s call for binding international rules represents an attempt to establish normative boundaries in a domain marked by rapid technological innovation and a lack of clear regulatory frameworks. This position is not without strategic calculation, establishing international norms that emphasize human control could constrain the development of fully autonomous weapons systems in which the US currently holds a significant technological edge.
The broader context of the China-US AI safety dialogue, which resumed earlier this year, makes China’s Shangri-La position particularly significant. As both nations continue to compete for technological supremacy, finding common ground on the governance of military AI will be a critical challenge for international security in the coming years.
The Shangri-La Dialogue itself reflects the broader tensions in the Asia-Pacific region, where China’s growing military capabilities and assertive posture have raised concerns among its neighbors and the United States. The presence of China’s delegation at the dialogue, despite the absence of Defense Minister Dong Jun, signals a willingness to engage in multilateral security discussions even as bilateral tensions remain high. Whether this engagement translates into meaningful progress on military AI governance remains to be seen, but the fact that both China and the US are publicly articulating positions on this issue at a major international forum represents a first step toward the kind of dialogue that will be necessary to prevent a dangerous and destabilizing arms race in autonomous weapons systems. The Shangri-La Dialogue may not produce binding agreements, but it is increasingly clear that the governance of military AI has moved from the margins of international security discussions to its very center, a shift that reflects the growing recognition that the decisions made in the next few years will shape the character of conflict for decades to come.
China’s call for binding international rules on military AI also reflects a sophisticated understanding of the strategic landscape. By championing norms that emphasize human control over lethal autonomous weapons, Beijing is staking out a position that is both morally defensible and strategically advantageous. The US currently holds a significant lead in the development of fully autonomous weapons systems, and international norms that constrain their deployment would disproportionately limit American military capabilities. At the same time, China’s domestic AI development continues at pace, meaning that any international framework would need to be carefully designed to distinguish between civilian and military AI applications, a distinction that is increasingly difficult to maintain as dual-use technologies proliferate.
The Shangri-La Dialogue has surfaced these tensions clearly, setting the stage for what promises to be one of the defining diplomatic and security debates of the coming decade. The path toward meaningful international governance of military AI will be long and contested, but the fact that China is now actively shaping the terms of that debate, rather than simply reacting to frameworks set by others, represents a significant shift in the global governance landscape.