Washington and Beijing are discussing a system for notifying each other when an artificial-intelligence incident reaches the level of national security. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the proposal emerged from weekend talks with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng, ahead of a Trump–Xi meeting. The outline is spare: define which failures, cyberattacks or losses of control deserve a call, then create a channel that can move before the public learns about the event through leaks or damage reports. Chinese and U.S. officials have different ambitions for AI and little agreement on trade or access to advanced chips, yet both governments worry about attacks on critical infrastructure and model failures that cross borders.

An emergency channel is a cultural object as much as a diplomatic device. It turns an AI catastrophe from a spectacular prediction into a form, a threshold and a person authorized to speak. That translation has consequences. Whoever sets the threshold decides which harms become international facts and which remain a private laboratory problem. A notification can protect a rival state, expose a company’s negligence or become another instrument of strategic pressure. The proposal also tests the language of trust: Washington wants to keep its lead, Beijing rejects an American monopoly, and both sides must describe a danger without offering the other a map of their systems. The first useful artifact may be a short list of terms shared across ministries, followed by a phone that rings before a model’s mistake becomes a public crisis.