China

We need to stand back and look at the big picture here, which is that at some point you can say that a lot of microchips that can be used in deadly drones are dual use, and that will be very difficult to control the supply of those pieces of technology. They have legitimate civilian use when it comes to a jet engine that might have 50 or 150 kilogram force of thrust, so it's a powerful system that you could say, oh, you know, well this is eccentric hobbyist equipment somewhere. Well, no, in my mind this is essentially a weapon. There is a large volume of this material that appears to be coming from China. The Chinese, of course, deny it. The companies in some instances say they can't control where this equipment ends up, and that is increasingly looking paper thin to me."

When you look around that table at the United Nations you do see a good degree of consensus on AI use and the limitations that need to be placed around that. For example, we see the US and China agreeing that nuclear weapons should be outside of any sort of automation of decision-making when it comes to artificial intelligence."

Internally, the expulsion of Mr Zhang and Mr Liu signals that Mr Xi wants absolute discipline, no unresolved factionalism, and no ambiguity over who controls the military before he leaves for Washington. The language about ‘cliques’ and ‘disloyalty’ in the Chinese media suggests that Beijing is targeting political trust as much as corruption.”