The 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) opened in Shanghai on Friday and runs through July 20, bringing together global participants to discuss technological innovation, industrial applications and AI governance.

As China moves from developing powerful models to applying AI across different sectors, some Western observers continue to portray China's progress as a source of unemployment and technological confrontation. Such arguments reveal less about China's actual development path than about a persistent double standard in interpreting technological change.

In a March report, Bloomberg warned that AI could wipe out 142 million Chinese jobs (roughly one-third of urban workers) by 2049—a scenario that could threaten social stability.

This selective rhetoric contradicts the World Economic Forum (WEF) 2025 Future of Jobs Report, which projects that 170 million new global jobs will emerge by 2030, against 92 million displaced posts, delivering a net employment gain worldwide. Furthermore the WEF predicts AI and data processing alone will create 11 million jobs globally by 2030 while cutting 9 million, a clear net gain.

Unlike US firms that slash staff to boost quarterly profits, Chinese authorities encourage enterprises to leverage AI for industrial upgrading and high-value job creation rather than mass layoffs.

In contrast to the US, China does not face mass AI layoffs for three primary reasons:

First, China has national employment targets, meaning the government works to prevent mass layoffs in a way that market-driven economies typically do not.

Haier Zhijia's WEF-certified "talent lighthouse factory" in Southwest China's Chongqing municipality rolled out a systematic AI reskilling program to transform assembly-line staff into intelligent equipment operators.

The initiative cut employee turnover by 40 percent without mass dismissals, according to official disclosures by the enterprise and the WEF.

Chinese courts also legally bar layoffs driven solely by automation: The Hangzhou Intermediate People's Court ruled in April that firing workers to replace them with AI constitutes unlawful termination.

Second, moderate domestic labor costs reduce corporate incentives for blind automation.

Western manufacturers face exorbitant wages and welfare overheads that accelerate robot substitution, while Chinese textile and machinery factories gain minimal financial savings from fully replacing human workers with machines.

Third, collectivist corporate culture prioritizes workforce reskilling over redundancies.

At Sany Group's lighthouse factory in Central China's Hunan Province, 2,800 traditional assembly tasks are now handled by just 400 workers.

Yet surplus staff received state-backed vocational training to transition into robot programming and AI maintenance specialists, with skilled workers earning a monthly skill bonus of 2,000 to 5,000 yuan.

Another frequent misconception is that China intends to enclose AI within a closed national system and pursue technological development without regard for mutual benefit.

China's open-source models and proposals for international AI cooperation point in the opposite direction. Models developed by companies such as DeepSeek and Alibaba's Qwen have lowered costs and expanded access for developers worldwide.

At the same time China's Global AI Governance Action Plan calls for open cooperation and the sharing of intelligent infrastructure, carrying out cross-border AI application cooperation, exchanging best practices and exploring ways to promote AI empowerment across all sectors of the real economy.

On July 16, China's AI startup Moonshot AI released its latest model, Kimi K3, featuring 2.8 trillion parameters, making it the largest-parameter open-source AI model globally.

An electric piano is pictured outside the office of the startup Moonshot AI in Beijing, capital of China, Aug. 1, 2025. (File photo: Xinhua)

The growing number of Chinese open-source large models demonstrates that Chinese tech firms are moving from individual breakthroughs to collective advances, offering new approaches to the global development of AI.

In reality, China's emphasis on affordable models, open-source ecosystems and large-scale applications is reducing the cost of AI adoption internationally.

For many developing countries and small businesses, the main obstacle is not a lack of interest in AI, but the high cost of computing power, software and technical expertise.

More accessible Chinese models and solutions can help narrow the global digital divide by allowing a wider range of economies to use AI in agriculture, healthcare, education, manufacturing and public services.

Delivering a keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the WAIC in Shanghai on Friday, Chinese President Xi Jinping said China will provide developing countries with 5,000 opportunities for AI training and seminars over the next five years.

In the meantime, China will help 30 countries utilize the AI-powered MAZU meteorological early warning system to protect people's lives and property around the world.

Restrictions on chips, investment and cloud services are what risk dividing the world into isolated AI blocks, not China's technological progress.

China faces challenges in adjusting to AI, including pressure on entry-level employment and the need for faster reskilling.

These risks must be addressed seriously, but they should not be exaggerated into claims that Chinese innovation inevitably produces mass unemployment or social crisis.

The world does not need an AI iron curtain, nor does it benefit from narratives that define Chinese innovation as a danger.

WAIC 2026 will provide an opportunity to see China's AI development as it actually is: increasingly industrial, application-driven, accessible and open to international cooperation.

The central question, therefore, is whether countries can move beyond zero-sum thinking and ensure that AI supports employment, shared development and the progress of humanity.

(Interns Xia Lehan and Zhang Yingze also contributed to this article)