China's Hidden AI Economy

How do users in China get access to Claude and ChatGPT through the gray market? What’s really driving China’s apparent “AI optimism”? How is China trying to deal with deepfakes and AI-generated content?

In this episode, I speak with Zilan Qian, a researcher at the Oxford China Policy Lab about the hidden side of China’s AI boom, including:

• How Chinese users use “transfer stations” to access American AI models like Claude and ChatGPT
• Why Chinese users still want to use Claude and ChatGPT even though there are strong Chinese mode
• Why China’s apparent AI optimism is really driven by anxiety about falling behind
• China’s push to label AI-generated content—and the problems with watermarks, detection, and false positives

Links:

• Zilan’s Oxford page
• Zilan on Substack and Twitter / X
• How to Buy Cheap Claude Tokens in China
• China’s AI optimism isn’t what it seems
• Labelling AI-Generated Content in China