China is making another significant leap forward in its aim of fusing technology with political education. Today, China is spending vast sums on artificial intelligence to help promote and spread the ideas of President Xi Jinping, as Beijing’s overall strategy is to leverage high-tech means to advance communication, education, and public engagement of state policies and ideology.
The state-backed Xinhua News Agency’s (Xinhuanet) publicly listed company is set to spend over 1.1 billion yuan ($162 million) on a new artificial intelligence platform, according to recent regulatory filings. The project is called “Xinhua Yudian” which translates to “Xinhua Lexicon.” It will be built as an intelligent AI agent with learning, research and dissemination of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era in mind.
The project places the focus on the growing application of AI by China as a means of economic and technical development and as a means of supporting national priorities. Although numerous countries are testing the potential of AI in business, healthcare, education and productivity, China is also looking into ways the technology can help spread government policies and ideology to the masses.
The proposed artificial system will have a few purposes. It will not just be a source of educational content on the political philosophy of Xi Jinping, but will also give users up-to-date news on politics and current affairs. As digital information keeps expanding at a rapid pace, officials feel many people are having a hard time distinguishing between accurate information and misleading, dubious or false information. The new AI platform will be used to guide users through a wealth of information and to provide content that is consistent with the officially approved narratives.
The project’s main purpose is to create, as developers put it, “an authoritative source of information.” With the ease of information sharing via social media, online forums and independent content creators, governments around the world are growing increasingly concerned about misinformation. China’s approach is a centralized and trusted information source creation. The nation’s plan for AI use aims to deliver answers and explanations based on government stances, using artificial intelligence.
This initiative comes at a time when the Chinese government is actively pushing AI development in its economy. Beijing launched a “AI+”, or AI-integration, initiative to help the country get used to using artificial intelligence at an earlier stage in areas such as manufacturing, healthcare, finance and public services, earlier this year. The initiative is part of China’s efforts to become a global leader in AI, and to incorporate the technology into everyday life.
For those who are watching Chinese policy, the new AI initiative is just another one of China’s many projects. The Chinese government has gradually adopted digital means to engage with the public, particularly among the younger generation that gets their information primarily from online resources. The old fashioned political education is slowly gaining ground in mobile apps, digital platforms and interactive technologies that attract internet users.
One significant case of this has been the “Xuexi Qiangguo” app launched in 2019. The website soon became one of the most popular mobile apps in China. It means something along the lines of “Study to Make China Strong,” but it also is a linguistic tribute to President Xi’s surname. The app contained news, educational material, videos, quizzes, speeches, and policy and development of the Government. During its peak popularity, it surpassed some of the major apps in downloads in China, giving China the power to lure users to their apps via digital engagement tools.
This new AI agent seems to be learning from the successes of that previous one. The new platform will not only display articles or videos, but also enable people to engage with an “intelligent system” that can answer their questions, explain things and look up information about Xi’s speeches and writings. The casual tone highlights the widespread global trend of using AI assistants and indicates that the Chinese government has an interest in implementing such tools for political and educational purposes.
The other major aspect of the project is that it would eventually be used as a reference and verification tool. Project outlines say the AI model will assist users to precisely quote Xi Jinping’s remarks in official documents and policy studies and interpretive materials. It acts as a politically sensitive reference assistant to minimize errors and provide uniformity in the application of important political words and phrases in government and institutional communications.
The platform will be fed with an “articulately collected data base, which is maintained by Xinhua News Agency,” according to developers. The set of information is referred to as a “pure and clean” corpus and the information sources used for training the system will be approved and verified. This is in line with China’s strategies to keep information environments that AI systems work in under their control. Many of the AI models currently available in the world have been trained on a wide range of data from the internet, but China has been shifting its focus towards creating models that meet regulatory standards and content protocols.
The investment is also a testament to the increasing role of Artificial Intelligence in the issues of governance, communication, and public opinion. Governments globally are looking at the potential for AI to enhance public services and to optimize administrative tasks. China’s project takes this idea a step further, assigning AI to the role of an ideological educator and policy communicator. It can be seen as a novel approach to fostering engagement with intricate political narratives, but may also be criticized for the influence of technology on public discourse and on the control of narratives.
The amount of investment is what makes this development significant. The investment of over 1.1 billion yuan indicates that the authorities are not merely conducting a short-term experimental project, but are investing heavily in a long-term strategic initiative in the field of AI. It also reflects the trust that Chinese institutions have in the power of AI to shape the way information is shared, seen and discussed in society.
