The United States and China are locked in a cycle of fierce competition and mistrust over artificial intelligence, and experts say the chances that President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping can change the dynamic when they meet in Washington next Thursday are dim. In the past few weeks alone, the Trump administration has accused Chinese AI companies of stealing intellectual property by "distilling" leading U.S. AI models, and threatened sanctions.
Beijing, for its part, has poured scorn on U.S. restrictions on chip exports, and accused Washington of running a "Cold War playbook" to hold Chinese AI down. It would seem there is little room, or appetite, for compromise. But former officials and policy experts say there is a buzzing bilateral dialogue — and a growing sense of shared concern about the dangers of AI — at the sub-national level in what diplomacy wonks call "Track Two." For decades, government-to-government interactions, sometimes called "Track One" diplomacy, have been underpinned by this sprawling network of informal private meetings and conferences, often run by think tanks or universities.
Track Two discussions bring together experts from both sides, and cover a wide array of topics, from nuclear disarmament to climate change. "I think there is no more important topic that the U.S. and China should be talking about than AI," said Sarah Beran, a former U.S. diplomat who worked on China and is the incoming president of the non-profit National Committee on U.S.-China Relations. The committee runs several Track Two discussions and has been involved in policy exchanges since 1972, when it sponsored a visit to China by U.S. ping pong players to help thaw relations.
AI is a tough topic, though, because there's so little trust in the relationship at the moment, says Beran. "The fear of chokepoints, being held back, and AI being used as a cudgel on both sides means that this is also one of the most difficult areas to talk about," she said. The idea behind Track Two is to build understanding, and work toward policy recommendations that both sides can agree on.
Sometimes, governments use them as back channels, or low-stakes ways to float ideas. Beran said that was the case after direct military-to-military discussions between China and the U.S. were cut off following then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan in 2022. At the time, Beran was the top China official on the National Security Council in the Biden administration.
"We floated some ideas in Track Two dialogues about what resumption of military-to-military communications could look like, at what level, what the topics would be. And then we took it back into the formal channels and negotiated on resuming those channels," she said. Then-President Biden and Xi agreed at a 2023 summit in Woodside, Calif., to get the military dialogue back up and running.
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