The Straits Times is reporting that U.S. President Donald Trump held two closely watched meals at the White House in the past week, including a state dinner with visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping on Sept. 24 and a luncheon with artificial intelligence executives on Sept. 29. It said the AI meeting included Anthropic's Dario Amodei, Nvidia's Jensen Huang and OpenAI's Greg Brockman, and focused on what more should be done to prevent AI from going rogue.
The newspaper said the result was a voluntary, "morally binding" pact by the executives to adopt safety measures such as having third-party auditors conduct risk reviews and evaluate AI systems. It said Trump's yet-to-be-named czar to lead White House AI policy is unlikely to change regulatory compliance much given strategic competition with China. It noted Australia set up a dedicated Office of AI in July, though its work remains a work in progress, as an attack by an OpenAI agent on Australia's health insurance system showed.
The Straits Times said Singapore, along with proponents such as Turkey, is calling for more action, with Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan focusing on the issue in its national statement at the U.N. General Assembly. It said the proposed name is long — UN Framework Convention on AI Safeguards — but the idea is an international institution to set common safeguards and standards in AI safety.
The newspaper said the dinner with Xi drew attention for the American tech moguls present and for thermos flasks brought by Xi and his wife Peng Liyuan, both from the Japanese brand Tiger. It said the most important appearance for Beijing was one word: respect. In official readouts, Xi got the formulation China has long sought — respect, in addition to fairness and reciprocity, it said.
The Straits Times said past U.S. presidents have baulked at such phrasing, worried it gives away leverage over Taiwan. It said a long-delayed US$14 billion U.S. arms sale to Taiwan may materialize only after planned Trump-Xi meetings in Shenzhen in November and Miami in December. It said Chinese analysts hope Trump manages the fallout through timing or by breaking the package into smaller tranches, and are increasingly confident such engagements have led Trump to internalize China's narrative on Taiwan.