Why the West Fears AI and China Doesn’t

Stanford’s 2026 AI Index Report found that over 83% of Chinese respondents see AI products as more beneficial than harmful. In the United States, the number is 39%.Geoffrey Hinton’s warnings about the existential threat of AI have rarely sparked serious conversation in China, not in the public, not in the industry. AI stays in the register of job threat, efficiency gains, and opportunity. People package the fear of AI to sell courses to anxious white-collar workers. Company owners pour resources into hiring the best experts to lead AI transformation.China does not seem to share the crisis the West feels toward the rise of AI. But is this a real optimism? Zilan Qian argues in Asterisk magazine that it is the memory of the great xiagang (layoff) in the 1990s. People learned to skip resistance and move directly to acceptance. I think what she describes is true. But what haunts me is why AI never triggers a deeper fear beyond unemployment.Part of the answer may lie in what Chinese…