Securitization, Layered Dependence, and Governance Choices in the Middle Ground
Southeast and South Asia amid U.S.–China AI Alliance Competition
ISSUE BRIEFS
Dr. Zhou Zhanggui
10/26/20261 min read
Signing ceremony for the agreement establishing the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization, Shanghai, 16 July 2026. Source: CGTN. ; Dr. Zhou Zhanggui, Senior Fellow of SAFN, Director of the International Collaboration Center for Overseas Safety and Security (OSS), Secretary General of International Forum on Non-Traditional Security(Hangzhou), Research Fellow at the Center for Non-Traditional Security and Peace Development Studies at Zhejiang University, Distinguished Professor at Tarim University.
Abstract
The U.S.-led Pax Silica alliance, the China-initiated World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization (WAICO), and the United Nations Global Dialogue on AI Governance represent three distinct institutional logics in contemporary AI governance: an exclusive security alliance, a development-oriented intergovernmental organization, and a universal but soft multilateral consultative mechanism. The Copenhagen School’s theory of securitization provides a critical analytical tool for understanding this configuration. By framing AI supply chains as an “existential threat,” the United States does not necessarily make middle-ground states more secure. Instead, a binary code of “alignment or hostility” systematically narrows the institutional space available to Southeast and South Asian states for diversified cooperation and strategic autonomy. Southeast Asia’s bargaining leverage lies in infrastructure that cannot easily be bypassed, whereas India, the major power in South Asia, exhibits a layered structure combining membership in a security alliance with dependence on open-source technologies. This paper proposes resilience-based governance as an alternative to securitization in regional AI governance. It advocates interoperability rather than bloc alignment, the integration of open-source capacity building into non-traditional security cooperation, and the coupling of green energy with digital infrastructure as priorities for middle-ground states’ AI strategies.
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