Researchers from artificial intelligence start-up DeepSeek and tech giant Alibaba Group Holding have endorsed China’s emerging AI regulatory framework while calling for clearer feedback in a paper published in the US journal Science.
The paper, published last month under the title “China’s emerging regulation towards an open future for AI”, said the country had so far facilitated an “innovation- and openness-friendly institutional environment for AI developers” but that it could be further improved with a national AI law.
The paper served as an introduction for foreign readers to China’s “pragmatic” AI governance system, the subject of much misunderstanding abroad, said Zhang Linghan, a professor at the China University of Political Science and Law, and one of the paper’s 10 co-authors.
Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team.
“China has actually transformed from a follower to a leader in AI governance, which is significant,” said Zhang, who was among those who drafted a proposed national AI law introduced last year.
The Alibaba logo is seen at its office in Beijing, Aug. 10, 2021. Photo: AP alt=The Alibaba logo is seen at its office in Beijing, Aug. 10, 2021. Photo: AP>
Joining the other legal experts in co-authoring the paper were two industry representatives: Fu Hongyu, director of AI governance at Alibaba’s research institute, AliResearch, and Wu Shaoqing, head of AI governance at DeepSeek. Alibaba owns the Post.
It was the second time in recent months that Wu had contributed to discussions on AI governance, after appearing on a panel about guard rails for ethical AI at the Global Open-Source Innovation Meetup in Hangzhou in September.
According to the paper, led by assistant professor of law at Tongji University and former ByteDance researcher Zhu Yue, China’s AI regulatory framework was taking shape at the same time as its open-source systems gained popularity worldwide. Central to the existing framework were a patchwork of AI-related regulations, including pre-deployment filing requirements for AI models and content safety self-assessments.
The authors suggested that the current framework had six pillars at its core, including exemptive rules for open-source AI and AI-powered scientific research, efficient judicial adjudication of AI-related cases and “experimentalist” phasing-in of new rules.
However, the authors noted that there was still room for improvement as this patchwork was “already complicated” in some areas, such as the lack of clear feedback when a filing was rejected.
The DeepSeek app icon is seen in this illustration picture. Photo: DigiTimes alt=The DeepSeek app icon is seen in this illustration picture. Photo: DigiTimes>
Another area of concern was the “extreme risks” associated with open frontier AI models, which could lead to “dangerous misuse” if the current exemptions for open-source AI were too broad.
“We argue that China’s leading AI companies need to be even more transparent and evidence-based about their efforts to govern frontier models,” the authors wrote.
While China has not introduced a unified national AI law, legal scholars have circulated two proposed versions that outline liability for Chinese AI developers, providers and users for AI-related misuse and incidents.
The authors noted that leading international and Chinese AI companies still “lack independent verification” mechanisms for managing the risks of frontier models, at a time when Chinese models were catching up with their US counterparts in terms of “frontier risks”, according to a recent study by Beijing consultancy Concordia AI.
“The paper presents a governance logic that differs from the approach adopted in Europe and the United States,” said Fang Liang, Concordia AI’s head of AI safety and governance in China. “AI ‘openness’ is defined here as a safety mechanism rather than as a source of risk.”
This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP’s Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2025 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
Copyright (c) 2025. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.