US pitches an AI incident hotline to China as Xi meets Trump at the White House

China's foreign ministry confirmed on 21 September that Xi Jinping would make a state visit to the United States from 23 to 25 September, with the White House summit today — his first White House visit in eleven years. AI is on the table through a specific mechanism rather than a general theme: the United States has proposed a notification channel for AI incidents serious enough to threaten national security.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent put it on the record before the summit. “We want to open a communications line, an incident line, so that we have constant communications,” he said on 20 September, adding that the AI discussions with Chinese vice-premier He Lifeng had been formalised as the “USA-China AI dialogues”, with the next round in China in about two months. His framing for why: “moving from opaque to more transparency between the number one and the number two AI powers in the world is very important.”

The precedent being reached for is the Cold War hotline, and the gap between that precedent and this proposal is wide. A hotline between capitals is a line between two governments that each control their own arsenals. An AI incident channel would have to route information that originates inside private companies — and on the American side, those companies spent Wednesday asking the Security Council for rules their own government had just rejected.

China has not formally accepted. Xinhua acknowledged that discussions took place without substantive detail, and He Lifeng and Li Chenggang left the earlier talks without addressing reporters. Nothing has been agreed, and the outcome of today's meeting is not yet known.

• Confirmed China's foreign ministry confirmed on 21 September that Xi would visit the US 23-25 September, with the White House summit on 24 September — his first in eleven years. South China Morning Post
• Confirmed The US has proposed a “notification mechanism” for AI incidents threatening national security; Treasury Secretary Bessent said on 20 September the bilateral track is now the “USA-China AI dialogues”, next round in China in about two months. The National Desk
• Reported China has not formally accepted; Xinhua acknowledged discussions without substantive detail, and the AI item is characterised as expected to be considered rather than an agreed deliverable. Al Jazeera