China’s regulatory strategy in the global open-source AI landscape
Open accessAbstract
China is currently situated in a critical window period characterized by the dynamic interplay of domestic open-source AI stakeholders and rapid shifts in external conditions. The design of a rational regulatory framework that accurately navigates this period will directly determine whether China can seize this historic opportunity to achieve strategic breakthrough in global AI competition. Drawing upon theories such as pluralistic interest group theory and punctuated equilibrium theory, this paper establishes a Pendulum Model for open-source AI regulatory policy, designed to determine the appropriate course of action under varying conditions. Policy diagnosis of Western countries reveals that: The United States’ regulatory practice aligns highly with the predictions of the Pendulum Model, thereby achieving equilibrium amid pluralistic interests. Conversely, the European Union’s regulatory practice significantly deviates from the model’s trajectory, leading the EU to miss a golden window for technological advancement and fall into a predicament where “stricter regulation exacerbates the gap”. The analysis suggests that China’s regulatory approach should adhere to an incentive-driven policy characterized by risk control. This approach embodies the principle of “Incentive Dominance, Risk Controllability”. Specifically, China should: Prioritize the systematic correction and integration of current incentive policies. Establish a multi-dimensional and dynamic open-source risk early warning system. Design a forward-looking, categorized regulatory framework to reserve institutional space for potential future policy shifts (pendulum swings).
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
0 of 14 cited sources checked · 0 supported · 0 flagged
- Findingcitation
In early 2023, Meta's LLaMA model weight leak further intensified public panic.
“2023 年年初,Meta 的 LLaMA 模型权重泄露事 件 [34] ,进一步加剧了公众的恐慌。”
Quote in the paperNot a substantial claim0 of 1 sources checked- cites [34]
Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.
- Findingcitation
In late 2024, reports that China used US open-source models for military development increased US government officials' concern about technology leakage.
“而在 2024 年年底,中国利用美国开源模 型进行军事用途开发的消息 [44] 加重了美国政府官 员对技术外泄的担忧 [45] 。”
Quote in the paperNot a substantial claim0 of 2 sources checked- cites [44]
Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.
- cites [45]
Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.
- Findingcitation
The US has established an open-source AI risk assessment and monitoring mechanism through tripartite collaboration among industry, academia, and government.
“美国已通过产业、学术和政府的 三方协同,建立起一套监控开源 AI 风险的评估机 制 [46] 。”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claim0 of 1 sources checked- cites [46]
Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.
- Interpretationreasoning
China's political field rapidly rose to a secondary field due to drastic fluctuations in the geopolitical variable.
“因地缘政治变量的剧烈波动,政治场域急速 上升为次要场域。”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claim - Interpretationnone given
China's current open-source AI regulatory practice aligns with the model's general incentive direction.
“我国对于开源 AI 的监管实践契合模型的激 励大方向。”
Quote in the paperNot a substantial claim
- Interpretationreasoning
The absence of risk prevention mechanisms and homogeneous local policy competition can make incentive-based plans unable to sustainably promote healthy and sustainable development of open-source AI.
“风险防控机 制的缺位及地方政策的同质化竞争,易导致激励 型方案难以持久推动开源 AI 的健康可持续发展”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claim - Interpretationreasoning
Central policy documents have marked open-source AI as a strategic lever for national technological self-reliance.
“这些中 央政策文件的表态标志着开源 AI 已上升为国家科 技自立自强的战略抓手。”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claim
- May combine two claims. 17
- Classified as probably not a substantial claim. 3
May combine two claims.
FindingcitationAs open-source model performance approached top closed-source models, US dependence on open-source models greatly increased, with a 62% usage rate, the highest globally.
“随着 开源模型性能向顶尖闭源模型靠拢 [33] ,美国对开 源模型的依赖度大幅提升,以 62% 的使用率位居 全球首位 [39] 。”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claim0 of 2 sources checked- cites [33]
Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.
- cites [39]
Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.
May combine two claims.
FindingcitationFrance's Hugging Face became the world's most important open-source AI platform, hosting more than 100,000 models in the first half of 2023.
“法国的 Hugging Face 已经成为全球最重要的开源 AI 平台,仅 2023 年上半年托管的模型数量就超过 10 万个 [51] 。”
Quote in the paperNot a substantial claim0 of 1 sources checked- cites [51]
Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.
May combine two claims.
FindingcitationUnlike Europe and the US, Chinese public opinion has consistently been highly positive toward AI, rising from 78% in 2022 to 83% in 2024.
“我国公众对 AI 技术始终保持着高度的积 极态度( 从 2022 年的 78% 到 2024 年的 83% )”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claim0 of 1 sources checked- cites [32]
Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.
May combine two claims.
InterpretationreasoningIn the economic field, the position depends on the power balance: open-source dominance pushes toward incentive, closed-source dominance toward restriction, and parity toward the middle.
“该场域立场取决于两方的力 量对比:当开源方占优时,经济场域偏向激励端; 当闭源派占优时偏向限制方;当势均力敌时,趋向 中间。”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claimMay combine two claims.
InterpretationcitationEU industry was constrained by backward industrial development, so the economic field's weight was relatively small, but it clearly pointed toward incentive.
“受限于落后的产业发展 [50] ,经济场域的权重占 比较小,但其内部明确指向激励端。”
Quote in the paperNot a substantial claim0 of 1 sources checked- cites [50]
Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.
May combine two claims.
InterpretationreasoningIn the social field, when external conditions are calm, no major security incident occurs, and transparency advantages are recognized, the game is at a middle state; if controllable risk mitigation measures exist, it tends toward incentive; during a major safety crisis, the pendulum rapidly shifts to restriction.
“社会场域 主体立场具有条件性与摇摆性:当外部条件平静, 无重大安全事件且透明度优势获得认可时,博弈 处于中间态;若此时已有可控风险缓解措施,则博 弈倾向激励方向;而在重大安全事故、负面案例曝 光的安全危机期,钟摆会急速偏向限制方。”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claimMay combine two claims.
Interpretationnone givenUS regulatory practice has closely matched the Pendulum Model's predictions and reached equilibrium among pluralistic interests.
“The United States' regulatory practice aligns highly with the predictions of the Pendulum Model, thereby achieving equilibrium amid pluralistic interests.”
Quote in the paperNot a substantial claimProbably not a substantial claim: may not pass S3 (load-bearing). May combine two claims.
PremisecitationOpen-source AI is recognized as increasing model transparency and enabling beneficial regulation, thereby preventing misuse or attack.
“开源被公认为可增加模型透明度、向善 监管 [15] ,从而防止模型被滥用或受到攻击 [16] 。”
Quote in the paperNot a substantial claim0 of 2 sources checked- cites [15]
Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.
- cites [16]
Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.
May combine two claims.
InterpretationreasoningIn the political field, when a country holds technological and industrial advantage, the game concerns standard dominance and technology spillover; when it is technologically weak and depends on foreign open-source models, the pendulum may shift toward restriction to prevent backdoor risks.
“当本国占据技术和产业优势时,涉及标准 主导权和技术外溢的博弈衡量;当本国处于技术 弱势端,依赖国外开源模型时,推动钟摆可能摆向 限制方向,以防范后门风险。”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claimMay combine two claims.
InterpretationreasoningThe technical capability variable determines the weight of the social field; if open-source AI technology exceeds a threshold, its uncontrollable risk sharply amplifies the social field's weight, making public safety demands override other considerations.
“若开源 AI 的技术水平超乎一定阈值,其 不可控风险将急剧放大社会场域的权重,公众安 全诉求将压倒其他考量。”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claimMay combine two claims.
InterpretationcitationChina's open-source model catch-up intensified geopolitical tension and triggered a fierce internal political-field game in the US between standard dominance and technology leakage.
“中 国开源模型的追赶 [42] 奠定了地缘政治的紧张基 调,触发了场域内部的激烈博弈”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claim0 of 1 sources checked- cites [42]
Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.
May combine two claims.
InterpretationreasoningChinese regulators remain wary of potential risks such as technology abuse and security hazards, so in the absence of obvious risk events, China's social-field game remains at the middle.
“但监管机构对潜在风险( 技术滥用、安全隐患) 保 持警惕。 因此,无论技术跃迁引发的权重如何变 化,在尚无明显风险事件时,我国社会场域的博弈 始终处于中间端。”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claimProbably not a substantial claim: may not pass S2 (checkable), S4 (based). May combine two claims.
Interpretationnone givenOpen-source AI is one of the key drivers for the rapid development of China's AI industry and is strategically important for achieving core technology autonomy and seizing future industrial high ground.
“开源 AI 无疑是推动我国 AI 产业快速发展的 关键动因之一,对于加快实现核心技术自主可控、 抢占未来产业制高点具有重要战略意义。”
Quote in the paperNot a substantial claimProbably not a substantial claim: may not pass S2 (checkable), S4 (based).
Interpretationnone givenThe risks accompanying open-source AI, including technology leakage, security and regulation, and backdoor intrusion, cannot be ignored.
“然而, 随之而来的技术泄露、安全和监管、后门侵入等风 险同样不可忽视。”
Quote in the paperNot a substantial claimMay combine two claims.
InterpretationreasoningChina's economic field has jumped to the dominant field with changes in industrial ecology and clearly swings toward incentive.
“经济场域 随 着 产 业 生 态 变 化 跃 升 为 主 导 场 域,并明确摆向激励端。”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claimMay combine two claims.
InterpretationreasoningIn China's political field, although restriction forces from technology leakage and backdoor implantation exist, the field game still leans toward incentive because the technology gap with the US is small and backdoor risks have other solutions.
“在政治场域,尽管存在技术泄露和植入 后门的限制力量,但由于与美国的技术差距较小 (泄漏风险后果有限)且后门风险存在其他解决方 法,场域博弈结果仍偏向激励端。”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claimMay combine two claims.
InterpretationreasoningSynthesizing the field games, the Pendulum Model's deduced ought direction clearly swings to the incentive end, but contingency plans are needed for bidirectional security risks in the social and political fields.
“综合各场域的博弈力量,钟摆模型推导的应 然走向明确摆向激励端,但需同时为社会及政治 场域的双向安全风险提供应 对 备 案。”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claimMay combine two claims.
InterpretationcitationIn the EU, the economic field became dominant and highly incentive-oriented because local industry scale and open-source dependence greatly increased; Mistral AI's open-source models proved potential to compete directly with China and the US, and Hugging Face became a de facto global open-source AI resource center deeply bound to the EU.
“欧盟本土产业规模和开源依赖度 都大幅提升,产业生态变量发生较大变化:Mistral AI 的开源模型有力证明其具备与中美直接竞争的 潜力 [42] ;Hugging Face 以百万级开源规模而成为 全球事实上的开源 AI 资源中心 [52] ,与欧盟形成深 度绑 定 关 系。”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claim0 of 2 sources checked- cites [42]
Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.
- cites [52]
Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.
The authors state this as an assumption.
The weighted combined force of the three fields determines the final direction of the Pendulum Model.
“由此,三大场域在此 权重占比下的加权合力将共同决定最终钟摆模型 的走向。”
The authors state this as an assumption.
Policy adjustment is driven by attention allocation, and a field's influence weight depends on its share of attention.
“公共政策的调整和转变将 由注意力分配驱动 [12] ,场域的影响权重取决于注 意力占比”
The authors state this as an assumption.
The Pendulum Model's derived direction represents the rational or ought policy trajectory.
“钟摆模型推导的应 然走向明确摆向激励端”
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
Each contradiction between two passages listed here was confirmed by an independent check.
Device-ban citation points to a 2023 AI index
MinorThe claim about US government device bans cites reference 49, which is listed as a 2023 AI index report. The bibliography instead lists a device-ban report as reference 48.
“美国以安全为由,已禁止多个美国政府机构 在联邦设备上使用中国开源 AI [49] 。”
“49. Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence. The 2023 AI index report[R]. Stanford, CA: Stanford University, 2023: 189.”
Hearing citation points to a device-ban report
MinorThe text cites reference 48 for a hearing, but reference 48 is a Reuters report about banning DeepSeek on government devices, not a hearing.
“"轻监管促竞争"的听证会 [48]”
“48. Reuters. US Commerce department bureaus ban China' s DeepSeek on government devices, sources say [ EB / OL ] .”
Cites
The publisher hasn’t deposited this paper’s reference list.
Research works printed but not linked: 16
- 封帅,薛世锟 . 开源人工智能与国际政治变革[ J]. 东 南亚研究,2025(5) :1-16,154.
- 郑晓龙,李家彤 . 人工智能时代的开源与闭源技术模 4 2 中国软科学 2026 年第 1 期 式探讨[ J]. 中国科学院院刊,2025,40(3) :459-464.
- HARRIS D E. How to regulate unsecured " Open-Source" AI: no exemptions [ EB / OL] . (2023-12-04) [2025-12-09] . https:/ / www. techpolicy. press/ how-to-regulate-unsecured-opensource- ai-no-exemptions/ .
- 傅宏宇,贾开,彭靖芷 . 人工智能开源的价值、风险与 生态治理研究[ J]. 电子政务,2026(2) :58-69.
- 苏宇,郭雨婷 . 人工智能开源生态的法律治理[ J]. 宁 夏社会科学,2024(5) :119-130.
- 贾开 . 经济民主与开源人工智能[ J]. 开放时代,2025 (5) :211-223,11.
- 王哲,薛澜 . 大模型开源创新公地:历史演进、价值逻 辑与中国叙事[ J]. 探索与争鸣,2025(7) :128-137,179,2.
- 徐进,王珏 . 开源人工智能" 伦理-技术共构" 的治理 范式演进 [ J] . 华 东 师 范 大 学 学 报 ( 哲 学 社 会 科 学 版) , 2025,57(4) :27-35,176.
- 周辉 . 开源人工智能模型的法律治理[ J]. 上海交通 大学学报( 哲学社会科学版) ,2024,32(8) :18-33.
- LATHAM E. The group basis of politics [ M] . New York:Cornell University Press, 1952: 36.
- 余敏江,李粤昊 . 中国共产党探索社会治理现代化的 百年历程:以注意力资源配置为视角[ J] . 理论探讨,2021 (5) :12-19,2.
- SPIRLING A. Why open-source generative AI models are an ethical way forward for science [ J] . Nature, 2023, 616 (7957) : 413.
- SCHNEIER B. Big Tech isn' t prepared for A. I. ' s next chapter[ EB / OL] . ( 2023-05-30 ) [ 2025-12-09 ] . https: / / cyber. harvard. edu / story / 2023-05 / big-tech-isnt-prepared-ais- next-chapter.
- IWF. How AI is being abused to create child sexual abuse imagery[ R] . Cambridge: Internet Watch Foundation, 2023:6.
- SPOHRER J. The role of open-source software in artificial intelligence[ J]. AI magazine, 2021, 42(1) : 93-94.
- STIGLER G J. The theory of economic regulation [ J] . The bell journal of economics and management science, 1971, 2(1) : 3-21.
- Authors
- LIAO, H., & ZHANG, T.
- Affiliations
- Tongji University (CN)
- ORCID
- ZHANG, Taolue
- Venue
- china soft science
- Published
- 2026-01-01
- Volume
- 41
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 16-26
- ISSN
- 1005-0566 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W7133245212
- Semantic Scholar
- 5f8c12c168cedbd6f1052af7c080fc854d56dfc2
- Cited by
- 0
- References
- 0
- FWCI
- 0.00
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Zhongguo ruankexue (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Law › Digitalization, Law, and Regulation
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Ethics and Social Impacts of AI
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Strategy and Management › Regulation and Compliance Studies
- Keywords
- open-source AI, AI regulation, regulatory strategy, pendulum model, punctuated equilibrium, China, United States, European Union
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Claims read by deepseek-v4.1-flash under definition version 3 (extract-v3) on 2026-10-06.
Classified by jev-1.13-20260917 (gold-guideline-v0.2) on 2026-10-06.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review