In the west the technology comes with at least some effort to provide security and a benign intent – not so from China

There is much to fear from artificial intelligence developed in China and handed to businesses and governments in the west almost free of charge.

Every month Chinese AI developers such as DeepSeek and Xiaomi dispatch the latest versions of their “open-weight” models that allow users to take the core software and use it without paying an expensive ongoing licence.

In Britain, we love cheap Chinese kit, usually setting aside any concerns about how it was made and who by.

The row over whether to allow Chinese electric cars unfettered access to British retail forecourts is a case in point. They are cheaper than other EVs sold in the UK and, consumers ask: What is not to like? These same consumers might consider how Chinese EVs are subsidised by Beijing deliberately to boost exports and, in so doing, undermine foreign domestic car industries.

It’s scary because Beijing is entering a new phase in the long march of economic development, taking the world’s second largest economy closer to making China great again.

Go back 10 years and Xi Jinping’s close supporters were alert to the internal contradictions of a totalitarian, command and control state apparatus and how it could trigger social unrest, much as it did in the last century in Tiananmen Square.

A property crash that still acts as a drag on the economy, rising unemployment, poor health services in many regions, a mismatch of men and women, an ageing population – they could all be the spark that threatens Communist party rule.

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