‘Code and Country’ report urges stronger U.S. response to China’s AI ambitions

By Tom Joyce
The Center Square

China’s pursuit of artificial intelligence supremacy poses one of the greatest strategic threats in history, a new report from the Center for Security Policy warns. The center is calling for a more aggressive U.S. response to secure long-term leadership in the field.

The report, “Code and Country: Securing America’s AI Lead Before China Locks Down the Future,” by former CIA operative Dr. J. Michael Waller, argues that the Chinese Communist Party’s control of AI technology would threaten U.S. sovereignty and global stability. It says Beijing views AI dominance as essential to its political control at home and its goal of becoming the world’s leading superpower.

Waller credits the Trump administration for reversing what he described as restrictive Biden-era AI policies, including Executive Order 14110 from 2023, which focused on oversight and regulation of AI rather than rapid innovation, and for restoring U.S. competitiveness through the 2025 AI Action Plan. He writes that the U.S. should expand on that framework with additional steps to outpace China’s investments and counter Beijing’s influence on international AI standards.

The report outlines several risks of Chinese AI dominance, including surveillance, propaganda, military expansion, and control over supply chains for raw materials and semiconductors. Waller argues that if Beijing sets the technical and ethical standards for AI, it could shape how both people and machines “perceive, think, and behave.”

“We are in one of the most dangerous periods in the history of human civilization,” Waller said in a news release. “CCP dominance in AI will harm all of us. It would hold the US hostage to Beijing for crucial raw materials. It will strip away the Western civilizational guardrails intended to contain the dangers of the technology.”

He recommends strengthening U.S. counterintelligence efforts, protecting intellectual property, encouraging domestic energy and data center expansion, and ensuring that American companies – not Chinese firms – set the rules for global AI governance. The paper also urges policymakers to treat Chinese espionage and technology theft as acts of economic warfare rather than isolated crimes.

“By the CCP’s own official doctrine, statements, and actions, peaceful coexistence is not an option,” Waller said.

The Center for Security Policy, founded in 1988, focuses on national security policy and research aimed at protecting American interests and values.