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Alex Lo

Like any revolutionary technology, artificial intelligence (AI) is morally neutral – it’s the use to which it is put that makes it harmful or beneficial.
But as I examined last week in this space, it’s America’s tech bros and their alliance with the US military, not AI itself, who are the real terminators of jobs and human lives.
While they are obsessed with achieving AI supremacy, Chinese policymakers have been far more concerned about regulating it, mitigating its impact on job losses and popularising its use as a social good.
It is trying to tackle the AI paradox: the more people use it, the more jobs in diverse sectors are threatened.
An AI productivity boost has long been promised, but it is already causing job losses. In China, it comes at a time when youth unemployment is rising while the decades-long economic juggernaut slows down.
Beijing has fully integrated its “AI-Plus” plan, first published last August, with its state industrial policy for the next five years.


The near-term goal is a penetration rate of at least 70 per cent across the economy by next year and 90 per cent by the end of this decade – what Beijing calls AI “diffusion”. Its projected spread is modelled after the successes of 5G and the emerging 6G in telecommunications.
Washington sees China’s AI-Plus as a threat, as it does with any Chinese tech advances, but Beijing is focused more on its own domestic needs and the future of its economy to balance against potential AI threats.
AI is not to be a force of disruption and destruction, as it is seen and even celebrated in Silicon Valley, Wall Street and the Pentagon. In China, it needs to be harnessed for social stability as well.
The labour market is already fragile, so popularising AI can be a double-edged sword. The finance, tech and real estate sectors no longer create jobs like they once did. AI further threatens their ability to maintain current levels of employment, including entry levels for the country’s recent graduates.
Low-skill workers are another, perhaps even more pressing issue. As mainland economists Chen Lin and Gao Yuepeng wrote in Chinese Social Sciences Today, “repetitive tasks and those with well-defined procedures are most readily encoded and thus automated … Industrial robots and robotic arms replaced assembly-line workers in manufacturing, while vending machines and ATMs displaced sales clerks and bank tellers”.
Now, more knowledge-oriented jobs may be affected. The two economists wrote: “Substitution effects have also appeared in knowledge- and technology-intensive industries: AI has proven effective in medical imaging diagnostics and searching and generating legal documents, and has begun to displace jobs such as radiologists and paralegals.
“As the price of digital equipment falls over time, businesses will increasingly adopt AI whenever it offers cost savings.”
The tens of millions of recent graduates and low-skilled workers are most exposed to the impact of AI.
Many are exploited by the gig economy with little social security. For example, if robotaxis and the low-altitude economy with its drones take off, there will be even fewer gigs in delivery work.




But even older, experienced and skilled workers are not immune. The fear is that the AI fallout can spill across the economy as the tech penetrates the majority of the population.
That will also have unpredictable effects on consumption and social security, according to Chen and Gao.
Beijing clearly understands there needs to be a reversal of policy priorities. Under the leadership of Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, when GDP was expanding in double digits, and mass lay-offs quickly turned into labour shortages, rural low-skilled workers could easily be absorbed into the urban economy.
Job security and economic equality – the so-called iron rice bowl – were sacrificed for a different, more capitalist social contract. If AI had broken through during the Jiang and Hu years, its no-holds-barred development would have fit right in.
But under the banner of “a shared prosperity”, Xi Jinping prizes social and economic stability and greater equality, so even highly disruptive AI, however vital to the future of the economy, must be tamed or regulated, even if it means slowing it down.
In the gig economy, for example, companies in recent years have been forced by laws to ease up on their algorithms that imposed tough working conditions such as short delivery time and income calculations on workers.
During the latest “two sessions”, an AI-Plus framework was being developed to protect and enhance employment that will include tax incentives and wage subsidies for the private sector to prepare for the retraining of workers and to cover employee retention. A wider social safety net may prove necessary.
Meanwhile, bosses, especially those who run the nation’s largest and most important companies in key strategic sectors, have been instructed to pay attention to disruptions caused by AI and to mitigate its negative effects.
AI will, no doubt, foster what Marxists call new “productive forces”, for example, raising productivity and boosting worker incomes in such fields as healthcare, education and leisure.


Its research and applications have expanded sectors in information technology, data science and semiconductor manufacturing, with their demand for highly trained professionals.
According to the World Economic Forum’s “Future of Jobs Report 2025”, demand for roles such as big data specialists, fintech engineers and AI experts will grow by more than 80 per cent in the next five years.
Between 2019 and 2021, China’s Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security announced more than 50 new professions including AI-related roles such as cloud computing engineers, big data specialists and industrial robot operators.
Most were created through industrial upgrading along with emerging positions in internet marketing and online learning and work training.
As Chen and Gao wrote, “While focusing on AI’s disruptive effects on employment, equal attention should be given to leveraging AI to improve job quality.
“In today’s labour market, practical skills may matter more than formal academic qualifications, and the rise of digital platforms has enhanced the efficiency of skill-to-job matching.
“By improving worker-job matching, digital platforms cannot only raise workers’ incomes but also boost enterprise productivity.”
In Marxist dialectical terms, the opposing poles of AI – tech diffusion and disruption – along with the need to compete with the US, need to be “synthesised” under a coherent set of industrial and foreign policies.
This will be a tough AI challenge for Beijing, which may or may not succeed. But it is a laudable vision of China’s future.


In China, AI is about job creation and quality, not mass retrenchments

Mason’s legacy lies in the reputation he helped forge for Hong Kong’s final court

A humane Chinese AI versus a dog-eat-dog American AI

Mandelson scandal could be the tipping point that costs Starmer his job

My Take

Beijing wants to implement artificial intelligence into its economy with minimal disruption to the livelihoods of its ciizens. Photo: Shutterstock

Alibaba chairman Joe Tsai credits China’s AI edge to power grid, open-source models

Joe Tsai, chairman of Alibaba Group Holding, delivers a speech on March 22 at the China Development Forum in Beijing. Photo: Handout

Participants attend the China Development Forum in Beijing on March 22. Photo: Xinhua

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaks during the Snowflake Summit in San Francisco on June 2, 2025. Photo: Getty Images/TNS


Trump administration moves to unify AI rules, bolster edge over China

The ​Trump administration has been pushing for a single AI policy legislative framework that can be applied uniformly across the country. Photo: AFP via Getty Images

China’s Tencent pledges new wave of AI investment as it bets on WeChat agents

A man walks past the Tencent headquarters in Shenzhen, in China’s southern Guangdong province. Photo: AFP

Tencent is developing AI agents within its super app WeChat. Photo: Shutterstock

China’s 5-year plan emphasises ‘orderly’ AI development amid global tech volatility

People watch as robots perform a dance during Lunar New Year celebrations in Beijing on February 18. Photo: Reuters

Chinese Premier Li Qiang chairs a symposium to solicit opinions on the draft government work report and draft outline of the 15th five-year plan, in east China’s Shandong province on February 2. Photo: Xinhua

Opinion

Beijing aims at tech diffusion and minimising social disruptions, rather than competing for supremacy with the United States


Beijing aims at tech diffusion and minimising social disruptions, rather than competing for supremacy with the United States.


United States

China

Xi Jinping

Jiang Zemin

Hu Jintao

Expresses the views, ideas and conclusions of the author. (Eg. Enough of Crazy Rich Asians, think of crazy poor Hongkongers.)


Column

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Beijing aims at tech diffusion and minimising social disruptions, rather than competing for supremacy with the United States

Beijing aims at tech diffusion and minimising social disruptions, rather than competing for supremacy with the United States