{"id":119404,"date":"2026-10-25T12:07:16","date_gmt":"2026-10-25T16:07:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/?p=119404"},"modified":"2026-10-25T12:07:28","modified_gmt":"2026-10-25T16:07:28","slug":"us-china-ai-blocs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/bgodinspired-news\/us-china-ai-blocs\/","title":{"rendered":"US and China AI Blocs: Why Countries Can&#8217;t Join Both"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='booster-block booster-read-block'>\n                <div class=\"twp-read-time\">\n                \t<i class=\"booster-icon twp-clock\"><\/i> <span>Read Time:<\/span>11 Minute, 28 Second                <\/div>\n\n            <\/div><p>In June, Kazakhstan&#8217;s artificial intelligence minister flew to Washington. Kazakhstan put its name to the American AI group. Three weeks later, the same country became a founding member of China&#8217;s.<\/p>\n\n<p>Nobody called that a betrayal. It barely made the news. And that is the part worth sitting with, because the US and China AI blocs are now asking dozens of countries to do the one thing almost all of them are quietly trying to avoid: choose.<\/p>\n\n<h2>What the US and China AI Blocs Actually Are<\/h2>\n\n<p>Two rival clubs, built about a year apart.<\/p>\n\n<p>The American one is called Pax Silica. It launched in 2025 and it is less about chatbots than about the hard stuff underneath them: advanced chips, the minerals you need to make them, and the rules for the models they run. It is non-binding. About two dozen countries have signed it.<\/p>\n\n<p>The Chinese one is the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization, usually shortened to WAICO. It was set up in July 2026 and is headquartered in Shanghai. The Associated Press counted 29 founding members, Kazakhstan among them, alongside countries including Pakistan and Russia. Later figures reported in Chinese state media have been higher.<\/p>\n\n<p>Both sides describe themselves in friendly terms. Washington has signalled that Pax Silica is for trusted partners. Beijing says the opposite is the point. &#8220;AI should not be owned by major countries,&#8221; the Chinese embassy in Washington told the AP.<\/p>\n\n<p>Underneath the language, the shape is simple. One group controls most of the world&#8217;s best chips. The other is offering cheaper models and fewer conditions. Nearly every country on earth wants something from both.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"convertkit-form wp-block-convertkit-form\" style=\"\"><script async data-uid=\"6491fb8269\" src=\"https:\/\/bgodinspired.kit.com\/6491fb8269\/index.js\" data-jetpack-boost=\"ignore\" data-no-defer=\"1\" data-no-optimize=\"1\" nowprocket><\/script><\/div>\n\n\n<h2>Almost Everyone Is Trying to Hold Both<\/h2>\n\n<p>Once you start listing them, the hedging is everywhere.<\/p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Kazakhstan<\/strong> is the clearest case: in both camps, three weeks apart. It has critical minerals and cheap electricity, a chip-linked investment deal reported at up to $10 billion to build what is being called a data centre valley, and record Chinese investment behind it.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Indonesia<\/strong> has joined WAICO and has been open about wanting the benefits of both AI powers.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Singapore<\/strong> is weighing WAICO membership while the American AI company Anthropic opens its newest Asian office in the city.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Saudi Arabia<\/strong> launched a platform in September built on a Chinese open model, while also expanding its computing power with American chips.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Japan<\/strong> sits firmly on the American side and still plans to use cheaper Chinese models for low-risk work.<\/li>\n<li><strong>France<\/strong> is trying for a third road entirely, through its own company.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<p>Dana Masalimova, a former Kazakh diplomat, put it plainly to the AP. &#8220;Everyone is hedging,&#8221; she said. &#8220;We don&#8217;t want this binary choice.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n<p>It is not a foolish strategy. Kyle Chan of the Brookings Institution points out that Beijing has to court these countries, which gives the undecided ones real leverage. For now, being wanted by two buyers is worth more than being loyal to one.<\/p>\n\n<h2>The Sentence in the Leaked Draft<\/h2>\n\n<p>Here is the detail that gets lost in most coverage of this story, and it is the one I keep thinking about.<\/p>\n\n<p>In August 2026, Reuters reported on an internal US State Department draft letter addressed to the 35 countries that had signed a separate American document in June, the AI Opportunity Statement. The letter warns those countries that joining a rival AI body puts their standing at risk.<\/p>\n\n<p>Three things about it are usually reported wrongly, so they are worth stating carefully. The letter was a <em>draft<\/em>. Reuters described it as undated and could not establish when, or whether, it would be sent, and the State Department declined to comment on what it called purportedly leaked internal documents. The 35 countries are not the same list as Pax Silica&#8217;s own members. And the letter never names China once. It refers instead to &#8220;duplicative initiatives whose expectations conflict with our own.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n<p>So this is not a formal ultimatum that has been issued to the world. It is a document someone inside a government wrote down and someone else leaked.<\/p>\n\n<p>But one line in it is doing something more interesting than diplomacy. According to Reuters&#8217; reporting, the draft tells those countries that membership is &#8220;not merely a membership subscription, but a commitment&#8221; \u2014 and then says this:<\/p>\n\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;To be part of everything is to be part of nothing.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n<p>That is not a threat. It is an observation about how allegiance works, written by a government lawyer, and it happens to be one of the oldest observations there is.<\/p>\n\n<h2>Why Holding Both Is Harder Than It Looks<\/h2>\n\n<p>The countries hedging right now are not being dishonest. They are being sensible. The trouble is that hedging has a shelf life, and the experts watching this say the shelf life is shortening.<\/p>\n\n<p>Two analysts at the Carnegie Endowment, Anton Leicht and Sam Winter-Levy, described the problem as access to advanced AI now depending on &#8220;the whims of policymakers in Washington and Beijing.&#8221; Aalok Mehta of the Center for Strategic and International Studies noted that every country in the world is now thinking in some way about AI sovereignty. The AP&#8217;s reporting is blunt about where this goes: the window for choosing freely may be narrowing.<\/p>\n\n<p>Nothing dramatic has to happen for that window to close. No country has to be expelled. One side simply has to start making the quiet calculation that a partner in both clubs is a partner who can be told less. Masalimova called Kazakhstan&#8217;s position a very precarious spot \u2014 and Kazakhstan has not done anything wrong. It just said yes twice.<\/p>\n\n<p>That is the real mechanism. Divided loyalty does not usually end in a dramatic break. It ends in being slowly trusted less by both.<\/p>\n\n<h2>The Oldest Version of This Problem<\/h2>\n\n<p>There is a line about this that is roughly two thousand years old, and nearly everyone remembers it as a rule. Jesus said no one can serve two masters.<\/p>\n\n<p>Read as a rule, it is an instruction \u2014 don&#8217;t try this. But that is not what the oldest wording says. The opening words are not &#8220;you must not.&#8221; They are closer to &#8220;no one is able.&#8221; It is not a command at all. It is a description of what happens, the way you might describe water running downhill.<\/p>\n\n<p>The verb matters too. It is not the word for working a job. It is <a href=\"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/articles\/greek-word-for-servant\/\">the ordinary word for being someone&#8217;s slave<\/a> \u2014 owned, not employed. You can hold two jobs. Nobody can be owned by two people, because the moment their instructions differ, one of them finds out they do not actually own you.<\/p>\n\n<p>And then the line does something stranger than warn. It does not say you will betray one master. It says you will end up loving one and resenting the other \u2014 stated in the future, as something that happens to you rather than something you decide. Which is a remarkably precise description of hedging from the inside. Nobody wakes up and chooses to resent something. You just keep saying yes to both, and then one day you notice which of the two you are annoyed to be asked about.<\/p>\n\n<p>A State Department lawyer arrived at the same place in eleven words, probably without meaning to.<\/p>\n\n<h2>The Question Underneath the News<\/h2>\n\n<p>You are almost certainly not negotiating a chip treaty this week. But there is a version of this sitting in most lives, and the news is a clean way to see it from the outside.<\/p>\n\n<p>Most of us have a stated first place and an actual first place, and they are not the same. The stated one is what we would say if asked. The actual one is whatever gets our mornings, our best energy, and the hours we do not even think about giving away. The gap between those two is where the tiredness lives \u2014 and it is why so many people <a href=\"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/real-life\/feel-torn-between-work-and-family\/\">feel permanently torn between work and family<\/a> without ever being able to name what is wrong.<\/p>\n\n<p>If you want a simple way to find your own gap, it takes one honest hour and no money:<\/p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Write down what you would say comes first.<\/strong> Don&#8217;t edit it. Just write it.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Then write down where your first two hours of real attention went this week.<\/strong> Not where you meant them to go.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Read the two lists next to each other.<\/strong> If they match, you are rarer than you think. If they don&#8217;t, you have just found the thing that has been quietly draining you.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Change one hour, not your whole life.<\/strong> Divided attention is not fixed by a dramatic decision. It drifts in, so it has to be walked back out.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<p>If the first list is harder to write than it should be, our free <a href=\"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/what-are-my-core-values\/\">What Are My Core Values?<\/a> quiz is a decent place to start \u2014 it is less about choosing values than about noticing which ones you are already living by.<\/p>\n\n<h2>Where This Leaves Everyone<\/h2>\n\n<p>The honest read on the news is that nothing has been decided. The letter is a draft. Both clubs are still recruiting. Kazakhstan is still in both, and for the moment that is working.<\/p>\n\n<p>What has changed is that the cost of not choosing is no longer zero. It used to be free to be friendly with everyone. Now it is beginning to cost something, and the countries that will handle the next few years best will be the ones that noticed early rather than the ones that got cornered late.<\/p>\n\n<p>Which, for once, is a problem you can borrow from the news and use. Not because anyone is about to send you a letter. But because the gap between what you say is first and what actually is first is the kind of thing that only ever gets harder to close \u2014 and it is still, today, completely free to look at.<\/p>\n\n<h2>One Question Before You Go<\/h2>\n\n<p>Do you think the countries hedging between the two AI blocs are being smart or are they just putting off a decision that is going to be made for them? There is a real case for both. Leave a comment and tell me which one you land on \u2014 I read them.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"convertkit-form wp-block-convertkit-form\" style=\"\"><script async data-uid=\"6491fb8269\" src=\"https:\/\/bgodinspired.kit.com\/6491fb8269\/index.js\" data-jetpack-boost=\"ignore\" data-no-defer=\"1\" data-no-optimize=\"1\" nowprocket><\/script><\/div>\n\n\n<h2>Share This<\/h2>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Kazakhstan joined the American AI group in June. Three weeks later it was a founding member of China&#8217;s. Nobody called it a betrayal \u2014 and that is exactly the problem. https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/bgodinspired-news\/us-china-ai-blocs\/<\/li>\n<li>A leaked US draft letter about the AI blocs contains eleven words that are accidentally one of the oldest observations about loyalty ever written down: &#8220;To be part of everything is to be part of nothing.&#8221; https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/bgodinspired-news\/us-china-ai-blocs\/<\/li>\n<li>Most of us have a stated first place and an actual first place, and they are not the same one. Found this while reading about the US-China AI split, of all things. https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/bgodinspired-news\/us-china-ai-blocs\/<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<h2>Q&#038;A: The US and China AI Blocs<\/h2>\n\n<h3>What is Pax Silica?<\/h3>\n<p>Pax Silica is a US-led international framework on artificial intelligence, launched in 2025. It covers AI models, semiconductors and the critical minerals needed to make advanced chips. It is non-binding, and roughly two dozen countries have signed it. Washington has signalled that membership is intended for trusted partners rather than being open to all.<\/p>\n\n<h3>What is WAICO?<\/h3>\n<p>WAICO is the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization, a China-backed body established in July 2026 and headquartered in Shanghai. The Associated Press reported 29 founding members, including Kazakhstan, Pakistan and Russia; higher membership figures have since been reported in Chinese state media. Beijing presents it as an open and inclusive alternative to US-led AI groupings.<\/p>\n\n<h3>Which countries have joined both the US and China AI blocs?<\/h3>\n<p>Kazakhstan is the only country publicly reported to have joined both. Its AI minister visited Washington in June 2026 and the country signed on to the US-led framework, then became a founding member of China&#8217;s WAICO about three weeks later. Several other countries are hedging without full dual membership: Indonesia has joined WAICO, Singapore is considering it, and Saudi Arabia has built on a Chinese open AI model while also buying advanced American chips.<\/p>\n\n<h3>Did the United States tell 35 countries to leave China&#8217;s AI group?<\/h3>\n<p>Not formally, as of late October 2026. Reuters reported in August 2026 on an internal US State Department draft letter addressed to the 35 signatories of a June document called the AI Opportunity Statement, warning that joining a rival AI body would put their standing at risk. Reuters described the letter as an undated draft and could not establish when or whether it would be sent, and the State Department declined to comment on what it described as purportedly leaked internal documents. The draft does not name China; it refers to &#8220;duplicative initiatives whose expectations conflict with our own.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n<h3>Why can&#8217;t a country simply join both AI blocs?<\/h3>\n<p>In principle it can, and at least one country currently does. The practical difficulty is that the two frameworks carry conflicting expectations about chip supply chains, model standards and security partnerships, so a country in both can be trusted with less by each. Analysts at the Carnegie Endowment have described access to advanced AI as increasingly dependent on decisions made in Washington and Beijing, and Associated Press reporting notes that experts believe the window for countries to choose freely may be narrowing.<\/p>\n\n<h3>Where can I read the original reporting?<\/h3>\n<p>The reporting that countries are increasingly torn between the two blocs comes from the <a href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.com\/Technology\/wireStory\/us-china-form-ai-blocs-countries-increasingly-torn-137547790\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Associated Press, published 25 October 2026<\/a>. The separate story of the US State Department draft letter to 35 countries was <a href=\"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/news\/pax-silica-us-letter-35-countries-china-ai-coalition\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">first reported by Reuters on 14 August 2026<\/a>.<\/p>        <div class=\"booster-block booster-reactions-block\">\n            <div class=\"twp-reactions-icons\">\n                \n                <div class=\"twp-reacts-wrap\">\n                    <a react-data=\"be-react-1\" post-id=\"119404\" class=\"be-face-icons un-reacted\" href=\"javascript:void(0)\">\n                        <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/booster-extension\/\/assets\/icon\/happy.svg\" alt=\"Happy\" title=\"\">\n                    <\/a>\n                    <div class=\"twp-reaction-title\">\n                        Happy                    <\/div>\n                    <div class=\"twp-count-percent\">\n                                                   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Most are quietly trying to hold both &#8211; and a leaked draft letter explains why that rarely lasts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":119405,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_wp_convertkit_post_meta":{"form":"-1","landing_page":"0","tag":"0","restrict_content":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[3589,5223],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-119404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bgodinspired-news","category-bgodinspired-technology-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119404"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119404\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":119408,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119404\/revisions\/119408"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}