Chinese President Xi The Biggest Danger To Open Societies, Could Create Totalitarian State Using AI: George Soros

Billionaire investor and philanthropist George Soros has stated that Chinese President-for-Life Xi Jinping represented the biggest danger to democratic societies across the world, reports BBC.

"China is not the only authoritarian regime in the world but it is the wealthiest, strongest and technologically most advanced. This makes Xi Jinping the most dangerous opponent of open societies," said Soros while speaking at the 2019 annual summit of World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

He noted that the communist government could potentially use emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to enforce a totalitarian control over the lives of Chinese citizens.

He added that the United States (US) should intensify its investigation against Chinese telecom firms like Huawei and ZTE as they were an "unacceptable security risk for the rest of the world".

The US and other Western countries have alleged that Huawei is closely aligned with the authoritarian Chinese government and works in tandem to assist its intelligence operations across the world. The company, which is the largest supplier of telecom equipment in the world, has been accused of transferring sensitive telecom data of overseas citizens to China.

The claims by Soros come only days after Xi Jinping asked senior Chinese provincial and ministerial officials to take all necessary precautionary steps to prevent risks that could threaten China’s stability and reforms.

Debt-Trap Diplomacy

Soros criticised China’s trillion-dollar mega-investment project, Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as it “promote(s) the interests of China, not the interests of the recipient countries. Its ambitious infrastructure projects were mainly financed by loans, not by grants, and foreign officials were often bribed to accept them."

Also Read: Global Opinion Now ‘Made In China’? Dragon Using Media, Think Tanks To Shape Public View, Says Pentagon