China's AI alliance keeps growing, just as Washington tells countries to choose

This article was published on August 19, 2026 China’s World AI Cooperation Organisation has added nine members in the month since it was founded, taking it from 29 signatories to 38, according to the South China Morning Post. It is growing at precisely the moment Washington is drafting a letter telling 35 countries they cannot belong to both camps. WAICO was signed into existence in Shanghai on 16 July by 29 countries, a year after Premier Li Qiang first proposed it at the World AI Conference. Xi Jinping used the accompanying summit to argue that no single country should monopolise the technology, calling AI development “a symphony of international cooperation” rather than “a solo performance by a single country”. The doctrine underneath the organisation has a name, and Beijing has now committed it to paper at the United Nations. China’s Position Paper on Global Cyber Governance in the Digital Intelligent Age, released on 23 July, is organised around “respecting digital sovereignty and promoting development for all”. Countries “should respect each other’s digital sovereignty, and they all have the right to independently choose their paths of digital intelligent technology developme