I think it’s a touch more nuanced than this. Personally, I doubt that most human command and control structures, including China’s, are actively seeking AGI (as it seems just as likely to turn on them as anything else). Though I certainly expect that there are wild card or black project players doing this on the margins around the all the post powerful corporation and governments.
China appears to be more focused on sharpening movement / behavioral control narrow AI but that is certainly NOT exclusive to China - look into Clearview AI and how our banks use AI models to throttle one access to services if this “suspect” something is amiss.
Having lived in China with some adjacency to the biggest tech and consulting companies there, I think we boogeyman the Chinese a bit too much, especially with the proposed solution to “competing” with China is just to become more LIKE China, with the only subtle difference being the division of control spilt between the government the corporation.
The best way to “fight” China is my view is to constrain our own politicians and corporations from behaving like Chinese ones - in effect promoting a true, freedom-aligned counter example to the “Chinese model” which unfortunately our government, and many of our citizens (on both sides of the political divide), seem foolishly eager to embrace.
