According to Fox News report on July 31st, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in an interview on Thursday that the tensions between the U.S. and China regarding artificial intelligence (AI) and rare earths are increasing, and he unprovoked accused China of 'having done many small things recently.'
Besant stated, “On the positive side, the overall relationship is top-down. President Trump has a very good relationship with the Chinese. However, you know, this cannot be used as an excuse for them to carry out underhanded actions behind the scenes.”
He compared the current situation to a water polo game, saying that China has “recently made many kicking moves under the water surface,” and threatened that “if necessary, the US side will also kick back.”
We expressed our concern about the limited flow of rare earth resources. Their actions have been detrimental to American companies. We also stated that if this situation persists, we will take countermeasures.
In the field of technology, Bessen continues to challenge Chinese open-source AI models, claiming that “Chinese models that perform large-scale distillation on American AI models” are flowing back to the United States. He also said, “We prefer open-source, but it must be legal.”
He claimed that the US has been negotiating with China on this matter at the working level. “The good news is that we are ahead of China in the field of AI. I believe our lead is quite significant, while they are ranked second.”
Besent also said that both countries need to engage in dialogue to ensure that "non-state actors do not gain control over powerful AI models."
While making these remarks, Besent announced that the US had listed 43 Chinese companies on a so-called entity list related to Xinjiang on July 31 local time, prohibiting their products from entering the US. Just one day before this, the leaders in charge of US-China economic and trade relations held a video call, during which they communicated about maintaining stable economic and trade relations between the two countries.
In response to this, the spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Commerce said on August 1 that the US side introduced measures that harmed China's interests just one day after communication between the two sides. This was a serious deviation from the consensus reached by the two heads of state. China strongly condemns and firmly opposes this action.
The spokesperson stated that the US actions have no factual basis. Continuously using the pretexts of "human rights" and "forced labor", the US relies on domestic laws to impose unilateral sanctions on Chinese enterprises, which is a typical example of economic coercion. The US measures severely damage the legal rights and interests of relevant enterprises and seriously undermine the stability of the global industrial chain and supply chain.
The Chinese side has always opposed forced labor. At present, Xinjiang is characterized by social harmony and stability, prosperous economic development, and people living in peace and contentment. There is no such thing as 'forced labor' in any form. The Chinese side urges the US side to immediately stop its attacks and smear campaign against Xinjiang, stop manipulating the issue of 'forced labor', and stop unjustly suppressing Chinese enterprises. The Chinese side will take necessary measures to firmly protect the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese enterprises.
