Interesting to read these two topics back-to-back.
The Chinese law enforcement official used ChatGPT like a diary to document the alleged covert campaign of suppression, OpenAI said.
:-/
The report comes amid a battle between the US and China for supremacy over AI.
The Pentagon is in a standoff with another prominent AI company, Anthropic [a major OpenAI rival], over the use of its AI model. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has given Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei a Friday deadline to comply with demands to peel back safeguards on its AI model or risk losing a lucrative Pentagon contract.
Sam Altman is so fucking thirsty right now.
Open AI knows their models have no technical edge over Chinese ones, so their only recourse is to fight dirty. Own all the hardware so people can self host their competition. Make using their models a matter of patriotism against those evil commies, cornering the US market like the car companies (who can’t sell their crap internationally because they never innovated). Leverage as much venture capital as possible to capture the market before the hype dies.
Do I believe China is engaging in a campaign of global intimidation? Heck, I’d be more surprised if they weren’t.
Do I believe they were using ChatGPT, product of an American company, as a “diary” to document the process? Absolutely not.
Do I believe China is engaging in a campaign of global intimidation? Heck, I’d be more surprised if they weren’t.
Why do you believe this?
Maybe because it’s true…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_police_overseas_service_stations
The initial allegations came from a Western-funded NGO report and were then amplified across U.S.-aligned media and political channels(Radio Free Asia). Official investigations did not substantiate claims of criminal law-enforcement activity. For example, authorities in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada stated they found no evidence of illegal policing operations, though concerns were raised about registration and transparency.
So not really a good reason to believe some nefarious global intimidation ring. You should probably read things before you link them.
Big empire does big empire things. They’re not as bad as the world police for most countries, mostly seeking economic dominance and lucrative trade relations. However, they are fundamentally motivated by imperialist interests and are much harsher in their sphere of influence.
Apologies in advance for the length of this.
To start, there is no modern Chinese “empire” in the way there is a U.S.-led Western empire.
The United States maintains hundreds of overseas military bases, a globe-spanning alliance architecture (NATO, bilateral defense treaties in East Asia, Five Eyes intelligence integration), permanent carrier strike group deployments, and an expansive sanctions regime. Since 1945 it has engaged in invasions, coups, proxy wars, destabilization campaigns, and support for armed non-state actors in dozens of countries, including in China during the civil war and later through toleration or political maneuvering around groups such as ETIM, which carried out violent attacks in Xinjiang and neighboring states. That is what empire looks like in material terms: global force projection combined with economic and financial enforcement mechanisms.
China does not possess that structure. It has one acknowledged overseas support base in Djibouti, no global military bloc, no equivalent to NATO, no record of regime-change wars abroad in the PRC era, and no network of foreign occupations. Those are not minor differences.
Framing China as “not as bad as the world police” implies rough comparability. That comparison does not hold up under scrutiny. The “world police” has:
– Invaded or bombed Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Serbia and others.(Been at war for all but roughly 15 years of its existence)
– Sponsored coups and destabilization efforts across Latin America, Africa, and Asia.(Pinochet, Banana republic, assassination of Sankara and Lumumba)
– Imposed sanctions regimes that function as collective punishment.
– Used IMF and World Bank leverage to enforce structural adjustment: privatization, subsidy removal, austerity, capital liberalization.
By contrast, China’s external engagement since reform and opening has centered on trade, infrastructure financing, and industrial development partnerships. Through the Belt and Road Initiative, it has financed ports, rail, energy grids, and industrial corridors across the Global South. Loans have frequently been renegotiated, extended, or partially forgiven. There is no systematic Chinese analogue to IMF-style conditionality requiring privatization or austerity as a precondition for assistance.
On the claim that China is “harsher in its sphere of influence”: China has not fought a major war in nearly fifty years. The 1979 conflict with Vietnam lasted roughly one month and is widely regarded ( including within China ) as costly and strategically flawed. Since then, border disputes (including with India) have involved standoffs and limited clashes, not prolonged invasions or occupations. Border tensions are common globally; they are not equivalent to imperial expansion.
It is also necessary to define imperialism clearly. In the classical sense that has any actual use, imperialism is not simply “a powerful country acting assertively.” It is a specific stage of capitalism characterized by the dominance of finance capital, export of capital for superprofits, division of the world among monopolies, and enforcement of unequal exchange backed by military power.
The Chinese system is a socialist market economy: a mixed structure where strategic sectors (finance, energy, infrastructure, land, and slightly over 70% of the largest companies) remain publicly owned and capital is subordinated to long-term national development planning. One can debate how early into the socialist transition army period it is, but it is fundamentally not organized around the same model of private finance capital dominating the state and projecting power abroad to secure superprofits. There is no evidence of systematic coercive debt seizures, gunboat enforcement of contracts, or military intervention to secure overseas capital flows.
Every state pursues national development, energy security, technological advancement, and geopolitical stability favorable to its interests. The relevant question is how those interests are pursued. The empirical record shows that China’s rise has primarily taken the form of trade integration and infrastructure investment, not regime-change wars or structural adjustment regimes imposed at gunpoint.
At present, there is one consolidated imperial bloc with global military reach, integrated finance capital, and sanction power across continents: the U.S.-led Euro-American alliance system. Other powers may have regional ambitions or security concerns, but they do not currently possess the structural capacity to organize and police the world economy in that way.(Russia is a big one as a relatively new capitalist power).
The assumption that any rising power must replicate the existing hegemon is an assumption. It is not evidence. If someone wants to argue that China is imperialist in the classical sense, the burden is to demonstrate the mechanisms, enforced unequal exchange, capital export backed by military coercion, territorial division through force.
You seem nominally leftist, you would probably benefit from deconstructing your foundation of “common sense” when it comes to political economy especially if you live in the imperial core. Ask why you believe things and trace it all back. I’m sure some will still make sense but a lot will be from immersion and osmosis of imperial narratives from constant propaganda bombardment.
Edit: As I was typing this the US empire launched a preemptive strike on Iran hitting a girls elementary school killing over 40 students alongside strikes on downtown Tehran. Death to America.
It is also necessary to define imperialism clearly. In the classical sense that has any actual use, imperialism is not simply “a powerful country acting assertively.” It is a specific stage of capitalism characterized by the dominance of finance capital, export of capital for superprofits, division of the world among monopolies, and enforcement of unequal exchange backed by military power.
I always found this assertion absolutely close minded and ahistorical. Were the Roman or Mongol empires not empires because they existed before capitalism? Were none of the dozens of dynasties in Chinese history that invaded neighbors and exerted economic influence along their historic trade routes ever empires? It’s a definition tailor made to never have to reconcile the flaws of certain modern countries, and it’s just as self serving as when liberals do it.
I’m also never gonna pretend that China got to where they are based on socialist principles rather than national self interest. Despite all the typically capitalists trappings like a bourgeoisie base of support, trampling on worker’s rights, and a robust owning class, it does put country over market principles. It sees the value in using capitalism to empower the nation, which is a far more competent way of handling it than anything liberals have been willing to adopt.
The nationalist support is strong and not entirely unjustified given the century of bullying from outside powers. Things are much better for people, and yet, the country has followed every reactionary social trend that the world has followed in recent years. Women must stay in their roles for the good of the people. Queer people weaken the nation. Minorities and the poor must be surveilled and tightly controlled.
And yet, all of that is seen as a fair compromise if the alternative is being weak and poor. I’ve seen similar justifications from liberals my entire life, especially from groups who have been discriminated against. I don’t think it’s entirely pointless to use the ideological tools and the institutions at your disposal to try to make your own community better. Not every effort needs to be revolutionary if such efforts will not lead to a better outcome. You can only work with what you have
Despite all that, I hate dogma, ideology, and identity blocking people’s mind from seeing the truth. I see nothing, even the parts of my identity I will defend most strongly, as beyond introspection. I do know the US is evil, I’ve been hearing firsthand accounts of its bullshit since I was a child. You don’t need to rant about it being terrible because I’ve been trying to convince liberals of the same thing for years. I think unhealthy hatred of China tricks so many of them into supporting evil because people, yourself included, seem to crave having faith in something. It’s so much more secure to have an ideology you put faith in I guess.
You are mixing together several different issues that need to be separated.
First, empires and imperialism are not the same thing. The Roman Empire and the Mongol Empire were empires. They expanded territorially through conquest. That tells us something about pre-capitalist state formation. It does not tell us much about how 19th–20th century industrial powers behaved once finance capital, monopoly capital, and global markets became dominant.
Using “imperialism” in the useful sense is not a dodge. It is an analytical category developed to explain a specific historical phenomenon: why advanced capitalist states began exporting capital, carving up colonies, enforcing unequal trade structures, and using military power to secure superprofits abroad. If a concept is meant to explain a modern phase of capitalism, applying it to Rome is a category error. We already have words for territorial conquest, war, annexation, and domination. Not every bad or aggressive action needs to be labeled “imperialism” to be condemnable. Just as not every atrocity is genocide, even though both can be severe crimes.
Second, on whether China’s development is rooted in socialist foundations: this is not a matter of faith but of historical sequence and institutional structure. The PRC began with massive land reform under Mao, eliminating landlordism and breaking the pre-1949 semi-feudal structure. That radically altered property relations in the countryside. It built universal basic healthcare, literacy campaigns, and heavy industry from an extremely impoverished base. When reform and opening began, it did so from a position where land remained collectively owned and the commanding heights of the economy were state controlled (the apparatus through which the people exert their power).
Today, state-owned enterprises dominate strategic sectors: energy, banking, telecommunications, transport, defense, and heavy industry. The largest and most systemically important firms remain under party-state control. Finance is not privately sovereign in the way it is in Western economies; it is subordinated to planning priorities. Poverty alleviation on the scale China achieved (lifting hundreds of millions out of extreme poverty within decades), large-scale infrastructure coordination, and sustained anti-corruption campaigns targeting high-ranking officials are not typical outcomes in liberal capitalist states where capital structurally dominates the state. You can criticize implementation or inequality levels, but the development trajectory is not reducible to “normal capitalism with a flag.”
On social questions, sweeping claims about uniform repression do not reflect reality. China is not socially homogeneous. Urban centers like Shanghai have gender-affirming clinics operating openly. Chengdu has a visible and active queer scene. Ethnic minority regions have received significant state investment in infrastructure, education, and poverty relief; minorities were exempted from the one-child policy for decades. That does not mean no problems exist. It means the picture is more complex than “reactionary uniformity.”
China also began from a far poorer, more backward and much more recent starting point in the modern age than most contemporary developed countries. The speed and scale of industrialization, poverty reduction and social progress in roughly four decades have few to no historical parallels. None of this implies perfection. A socialist transition in a large, unevenly developed country integrated into the global market will contain contradictions: inequality, bureaucratic distortion, market pressures, ideological struggle. Expecting a frictionless transition misunderstands the theory itself. Socialism is not a moral condition achieved overnight; it is a protracted restructuring of property relations, production, and global positioning under difficult constraints.
Finally, rejecting dogma cuts both ways. Treating “all rising powers inevitably replicate imperialism” as a fixed truth is also a form of ideological closure. The question should remain empirical: what are the property relations? Who controls finance? Is capital subordinated to political planning or vice versa? Is global expansion enforced militarily for superprofits, or is integration primarily commercial?
China can be criticized where warranted. But critique should rest on material analysis, not analogy or inherited narratives. Edit: fixed formatting
Using “imperialism” in the useful sense is not a dodge. It is an analytical category developed to explain a specific historical phenomenon: why advanced capitalist states began exporting capital, carving up colonies, enforcing unequal trade structures, and using military power to secure superprofits abroad.
What a fascinating concept! Find a different term or add on modifiers. It’s not the heart of what imperialism is and it is self serving whether you admit it or not. I’ve heard liberals use the same cope when I tried to explain how America could institute an explicitly feudal model in the future. They claimed it needed a church like in medieval Europe to be feudalism, basically constraining the concept to a time and place that isn’t now. Don’t make the same mistake.
Also, “reactionary uniformity” was not what I said or implied. I said it followed global trends in reactionary social policy, because China is not special, and that rarely includes absolute genocide. Queer people are resilient and always make space for themselves; it’s kinda our thing. However, queer people having our own spaces or not having to hide never meant we were accepted by the government or safe from persecution. Few governments really want to get rid of us, just use us as scapegoats and attack us as needed. This is again, because despite everything different about China, it is not special.
China indeed has a different capitalist strategy, but I’ve met enough Chinese rich kids with family well connected to the party to know that it is still capitalism. They will not replace America’s tactics internationally because it isn’t a strategy they want. America’s is not the only imperial strategy and does not mean China’s isn’t still imperialism.
I don’t separate domestic and international strategy because I’ve seen that abused in my own country’s politics. It’s all the same conversation and not seeing how everything works together is a mistake. From the macro to the micro is all the same world, and one of humanity’s biggest flaws is not being able to integrate different scales.
You’re still not engaging the substance.
Feudalism is a defined mode of production. It refers to specific property relations and hierarchical organization of society. The church was historically important in Europe, but it is not what defines feudalism. The defining feature is the structure of land ownership and obligations. The same applies here.
Imperialism, is not a synonym for “large country acting assertively” or “foreign policy I dislike.” It refers to a specific configuration of global political economy: monopoly capital, dominance of finance capital, export of capital for superprofits, division of markets, and coercive enforcement of unequal exchange. If you strip those structural elements away and use the term to mean “big state behavior,” the concept becomes analytically useless. It stops explaining anything.
You object to the definition but refuse to provide a coherent alternative. If you think the term should mean something else, define it clearly and demonstrate how China fits that definition and how it has meaningful value as an analysis tool. “Different imperial strategy” is not an argument.
On social transformation, dismissing China’s development as “not special” is evasion. The PRC began from conditions that included mass illiteracy, extreme rural poverty, war devastation, landlordism, widespread arranged marriage practices, and remnants of practices like foot binding within living memory. It was one of the poorest large countries on earth. Within a few generations it eradicated extreme poverty, built nationwide high-speed rail, electrified rural areas, massively expanded higher education, massively expanded women’s and LGBT+ rights and raised life expectancy by decades. That scale and speed of transformation is historically unheard of especially when coupled with not pillaging the third world to finance it. Flattening that into “every country follows global trends” avoids engaging the material record.
On your anecdote about rich, well-connected Chinese kids: that proves nothing about the structure of the system. Every large society has contradictions. The existence of wealthy individuals does not determine mode of production. What matters is whether private capital structurally dominates the state and the commanding heights of the economy.
I am a minority Chinese citizen originally from a rural village. I have firsthand experience of the countryside you are theorizing about from a distance. I also hold a master’s degree in Marxist theory. Wealthy diaspora anecdotes do not outweigh structural analysis or lived reality. Before asserting conclusions about an entire political economy, it would be worth engaging with its institutional structure rather than relying on social impressions.
Land in China is publicly owned. The banks are state-owned. Core sectors (energy, telecoms, rail, defense, heavy industry )are state enterprises. Planning institutions shape capital allocation. When private firms grow politically destabilizing, the state has shown it will discipline them. That is materially different from systems where finance capital disciplines the state.
You’re correct that macro and micro interact. That is precisely the point. If the internal system subordinates capital to state planning and national development goals, external behavior will reflect that structure. China’s international conduct: trade integration, infrastructure financing, debt renegotiation, absence of regime-change wars, follows from its internal political economy. It prioritizes development partnerships over military enforcement.
None of this means the system is perfect. It means it does not structurally match the definition of imperialism as a stage of monopoly capitalism enforced through global military dominance.
If you want to argue that it does, demonstrate the mechanisms. Identify the finance capital dominance, the coercive capital-export regime, the military enforcement of unequal exchange. Without that, you are asserting a label without meeting its criteria.
Precision is not dogma. It is the difference between analysis and rhetoric. And you are firmly in the rhetoric category for now.
Among other things, I’d believe it because Wakmrow admitted to its existence, and then proceeded to tell me that its targets deserved it. Disturbing stuff from Lemmy, honestly.
That’s a Wikipedia article that cites Radio Free Asia, The US Government and western funded think tanks. I would call that about as trustworthy as you would call DPRK state media. Also I didn’t ask you.
Are you people the must gullible people to exist? Open AI put this “report” out. Hmm, do you think there’s any motivation for them to show how useful their chatbot is? Especially regarding “national security”? Followed up by, no joke, a radio free asia source, known CIA mouthpiece. Reported on breathlessly by cnn.
Like. This is the most obvious fiction.
It sounds like you’re demanding a level of proof that’s basically impossible to provide to you.
What do you think is more likely?
- This is a high level conspiracy between multiple parties to make one Chinese official look dumb, or
- ChatGPT attracts dumb people, who exist worldwide
- OpenAI has identified that ChatGPT has being used from networks associated with CCP headquarters, and fabricates a plausible story for the press to show how useful their data can be for US military intelligence.
The timing of this news story is too good to not be an attempt to get hold one of those Pentagon contracts Anthropic has been offered (and might lose), with all means necessary.
Regardless of the actual truth, I am just curious about the overall optics of this. Why would OpenAI (implicitly) admit that they are spying on their users, and show that they are willing to share it with the press?
Most arguments for surveillance (and all authoritarianism) boil down to either saving the children or fighting an eternal enemy. Obviously OpenAI does surveil all its users, but the “for the children” argument would hurt their user numbers (I wanted to say it would hurt their profits, but they don’t profit off of any user). Thus, it’s “but China” instead.
regardless of truth, OpenAI spends a lot of effort in data mining on its users, and is eager to amplify warmongering narratives that US establishment is committed to.
Holy strawman.
This is a high level conspiracy between multiple parties to make one Chinese official look dumb,
No it’s a standard propoganda run, run through the most standard propaganda mouthpiece (RFA) to spread propaganda about China? Are you being dense on purpose?
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Tankie is when you’re Chinese apparently.
It’s just not believable that they’d be using chatgpt in government over the Chinese alternatives. I very much believe their probably are people using/abusing chatbots for dumb stuff. But this specific story given the details and time it’s “come to light” is just so obviously fabrication for altman to show what a good boy he is and pushing his bot for American defence contracts.
Your original comment was a clear badfaith strawman.
Tankie is when you’re Chinese apparently.
No, it’s when you post pro Stalin stuff on c/communism. Please don’t engage in bad faith arguments like this.
It’s just not believable… so obviously fabrication for altman to show what a good boy he is
Okay, so you do believe it’s a conspiracy between multiple parties to manufacture a lie to get onto CNN. That’s just your position. No strawman needed.
I agree that Sam Altman is probably trying to deflect from all the (well-deserved) bad press he’s getting right now… but if he was going to make up a story, it should have been closer to when he got caught helping teens kill themselves.
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I don’t root for any team, and I have no idea how you managed to assume that if you read what I said.
You are continuing to just engage in bad faith. All the best.
Edit: nice edit over an hour later btw lmao. You really dug far into my profile lol.
No, I’m perfectly willing to accept information when the evidence provided suggests the conclusion.
But examining the conclusion and insinuations and then examining the claims and the sources with the knowledge of US actions and motivations, this is just garden variety lazy lies.
There isn’t any evidence that a Chinese official actually did this just claims from a chatgpt investigation.
I’m perfectly willing to accept information when the evidence provided suggests the conclusion.
The evidence provided does suggest the conclusion. You just apparently distrust the source along nationalist lines. Predictable but unfortunate.
The Pentagon is in a standoff with another prominent AI company, Anthropic, over the use of its AI model. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has given Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei a Friday deadline to comply with demands to peel back safeguards on its AI model or risk losing a lucrative Pentagon contract
Do you think that this paragraph from the article might be relevant to open AIs “report” (which is not released as part of this article)? Do you think there’s maybe a reason to be suspicious about their capability in reporting about “high level” Chinese administrators?
What evidence? It’s just a claim from a CEO with every incentive to lie.
Kind of crazy to think people are using ChatGPT for such covert things.
This official didn’t just expose state secrets. They were using ChatGPT in the dumbest way I can imagine:
ChatGPT served as a journal for the Chinese operative to keep track of the covert network, while much of the network’s content was generated by other tools and spread through social media accounts and websites.
A journal. A freaking journal.
From a chatbot that is known to change text on a whim.
Ironic as I put all of my deepest darkest secrets into deepseek
Everybody knows OpenAI is where you open up about stuff. That’s why they named it that, right?
Cant help but feel someone has a huge incentive to claim that their bot has chinese state secrets.
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