"AI should not be the solo of one country": Xi Jinping mobilizes the Global South against American restrictions

Twenty-nine countries signed the founding agreement of the World AI Cooperation Organization (WAICO) in Shanghai on July 16. This new intergovernmental body is dedicated to the governance of AI. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres attended the signing ceremony, while Xi Jinping delivered the opening speech. This is a clear symbol: Beijing is no longer content to follow international debates on AI regulation; it now wants to lead them from its own territory.

Key points of this article:

• Twenty-nine countries signed the founding agreement of the World AI Cooperation Organization in Shanghai, symbolizing China's ambition to lead AI governance.
• The absence of the West among the founding members of WAICO highlights a new geopolitical dynamic centered around China, Russia, BRICS, and Global South countries.

The lineup of the 29 founding members speaks volumes. It includes Russia, Belarus, Serbia, Cuba, Brazil, Venezuela, Kazakhstan, Laos, Pakistan, and Indonesia, along with about ten African countries and a dozen Asian countries. Not a single member from the G7, nor any country from the European Union.

WAICO establishes itself within a China, Russia, BRICS, and Global South axis, with its headquarters set in Shanghai rather than Geneva or New York. Xi Jinping summarized it in his speech: "The development of AI should not be a solo performance of one country, but a symphony of international cooperation," Bloomberg reported on July 16. A carefully chosen phrase, presumably aimed at not targeting anyone in particular. But everyone understood who it was directed at.

What is at stake behind this announcement is a battle of norms rather than just an administrative structure. If WAICO recruits beyond a core group of countries already aligned with Beijing, it will establish a parallel governance architecture for AI alongside existing frameworks: OECD principles, the European AI regulation (AI Act), and the G7's Hiroshima process. Three blocs, three logics, and increasingly less common ground to set global rules for a technology that does not recognize borders.

According to PYMNTS, the initial proposal dates back to Xi Jinping's intervention at the APEC summit in November 2025: since then, Beijing has transformed an idea into an institution in just over eight months. It is hard not to see this as a lesson in execution speed.

The Chinese bet, in essence, resembles what has already been observed on the corporate side. DeepSeek, for example, is preparing for an IPO at $50 billion, a way for China to show that it can compete with Silicon Valley in the commercial arena. WAICO makes the same demonstration, in a diplomatic version: while the United States sets technical standards, China wants to set political standards.

And this is where it becomes interesting for the two-thirds of countries that have not joined either the European AI Act, the OECD principles, or WAICO. Many countries in the Global South simply do not have the means to draft their own regulatory framework for AI.

Joining a turnkey organization, with funding and technical assistance on offer, is appealing, regardless of any ideological affinity with Beijing. The question remains whether the European Union, often cited as an example for its AI Act, will be able to respond to this normative offensive before the map of AI governance is redrawn without it.