MO Shengkai
Associate Professor, Department of International Politics, University of International Relations
AI is profoundly reshaping international politics in four dimensions. First, it is reshaping comprehensive national power competition: China and the United States have emerged as the leading AI powers, with AI driving China’s upgrading of traditional industries and breakthroughs in emerging fields, triggering global technological and economic rivalry. Second, it is restructuring cognitive security. AI and deepfakes lower the barriers to fabrication, intensify information echo chambers and cognitive manipulation, elevating cognitive defense to a critical dimension of national security. Third, it is transforming the nature of military competition, propelling warfare toward intelligentization and algorithmization, shortening decision-making cycles, with drones and autonomous systems becoming key combat capabilities and AI serving as the core driver of military power. Fourth, it challenges global governance: data security, algorithmic bias, and militarized applications urgently require regulation, the existing international legal system lags behind, and AI value alignment bears directly on the stability of the global order.
