upwards exactly 50 metres. And its students must train for nearly three months and pass a tough test before receiving certification. China’s effort to corral its drones mirrors a debate now consuming officials the world over: how tightly to grip a technology before it runs wild. The dilemma—enough freedom for innovation, enough control to prevent disaster—is the central regulatory challenge of the age, repeated across autonomous driving, artificial intelligence and much else. China’s approach matters, because in many of these fields it is at or near the frontier. Confusingly, two opposing narratives dominate discussions about China’s tech regulations. One is that it is unusually permissive: an under-developed legal system means companies are not bound by red tape; local governments vie for investment by letting entrepreneurs experiment; and the country as a whole has an “authoritarian advantage” in that it need not be troubled by inconveniences such as ethics or privacy. The other narrative is that China cannot help but strangle its own tech champions, because it is unwilling to let private companies get too powerful and wants guardrails around disruptive technology. Each narrative has some truth. The tension between them is captured by baorong shenshen, a term that Chinese officials use to describe their overarching goal in tech regulation: “inclusiveness and prudence”. In principle that means an openness to all manner of new inventions, dovetailed with caution about applications. In practice, China persistently struggles to meet both objectives. Take autonomous driving. China looks like a natural candidate to lead it. It already makes about 70% of the world’s electric vehicles and churns out the sensors needed for robo-cars. But in draft rules that go into effect next year, regulators are tapping the brakes. “Level 3” cars, in which technology controls everything but drivers must remain alert, will be required to come to a safe stop if drivers fail to respond promptly to warnings. The rules emerged after two notorious accidents involving self-driving cars. Historically prudence often triumphs in China. It was once the Wild West for cryptocurrencies; now they are banned. Regulators cracked down on internet giants when they muscled in on bank-style lending. And they enforce time
limits to prevent children from becoming addicted to online games. The pattern is clear. When in doubt, China embraces caution, even nannying. The latest area in which China is trying to get the balance right is artificial intelligence. Many observers used to think the government was so determined to lead the world in ai that it would even tolerate mass job losses caused by the technology. But China is now showing a more conservative streak. Last month a court ruled that companies cannot fire employees in order to replace them with ai. After a brief frenzy of people downloading ai agents—models that can make decisions themselves—the government announced in recent weeks that these agents will require human oversight, and that it will create a national registration system for them. Whether that reflects wisdom or timidity may depend on how fast foreign rivals move. Chinese scholars have turned to a somewhat obscure concept to make sense of this stop-start pattern: the Collingridge dilemma, named after David Collingridge, a late professor at Aston University in Birmingham, England. In the 1980s he observed that when technologies are young, it is impossible to foresee how they will develop, so they cannot be well regulated; but as technologies spread, they can quickly reach a point where it is extremely difficult to regulate them. Although the Collingridge dilemma pops up in Western discussions every now and again, its fame is now greater in China. Since the rise of generative ai, scores of academic papers have asked whether it is possible to escape the dilemma. In March, Fudan University, one of China’s leading universities, hosted a forum devoted to the dilemma in ai governance, which put Collingridge, or “Kelingeliqi”, in news headlines. Credit to the Chinese academics for highlighting such a pithy way to think about regulation of new technologies. But identifying the dilemma is not the same as solving it. At the Fudan conference, scholars reached something of a consensus: regulation was bound to lag behind the technology. That certainly has been the experience of China in multiple domains. And when officials do belatedly wade in, they tend to over-correct for previous laxity. Back in the world of drones, enthusiasts hope that the flying and buying rules in Beijing are an outlier, reflecting security worries in the capital. They believe that by establishing clearer rules around low-altitude airspace,
regulators are readying the skies for a brave future in which drones zip goods and even people across cities and over fields. Conversely, anxiety about public safety is hardly unique to Beijing, so a more security-obsessed China could also mean a more constrained horizon for drones, especially in cities. No one is certain which vision will prevail. Chinese officials are often lionised for their far-sighted plans, but when it comes to new tech they, like so many others, are fumbling in the dark. ■ Subscribers to The Economist can sign up to our Opinion newsletter, which brings together the best of our leaders, columns, guest essays and reader correspondence. This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com//china/2026/05/11/china-knows-that-governing-new-tech- can-be-harder-than-inventing-it
A Congolese militia wants to sell critical minerals to Donald Trump Macron turns to English-speaking Africa Gulf states fear irreversible fallout from the Iran crisis Bashar al-Assad’s henchmen start to go on trial in Syria
Middle East & Africa | Kivu take A Congolese militia wants to sell critical minerals to Donald Trump The pitch by M23, exclusively revealed to The Economist, belies the rebels’ weaknesses May 14th 2026 BEFORE YOU interview the leaders of M23, the Congolese rebel group that has taken over swathes of Africa’s second-largest country, prepare for some unusual preliminaries. Men with machineguns frisk you for weapons. A secretary flicks through your notebook, page by page, “in case there is poison”. Devices and watches must be left outside the meeting room, lest they prove to be trackable or explosive. Once inside, however, M23 wants to project a businesslike approach. A social-media team takes photos. There is corporate merch: flags, banners and desk calendars. The Economist is given, exclusively, a slide deck about why
America should cut a deal with the group over the rare earths and 3T metals (tin, tungsten and tantalum) under its control. Corneille Nangaa, leader of M23’s political arm, says: “Those minerals are in our region…Come, let’s discuss.” Mr Nangaa’s chutzpah reflects M23’s hold on much of South and North Kivu, provinces in eastern Congo that together hold 15m people and span an area the size of Greece or Mississippi (see map). Diplomatic talks have failed to stop the front line of its war with the Democratic Republic of Congo from lengthening. From Goma, North Kivu’s capital, M23 is building a parallel administration. Yet the pleas are also a sign of concern that the Trump administration is increasingly siding with M23’s enemy. In December America signed a “strategic partnership” with Congo. In March it imposed sanctions on the army of Rwanda, the neighbouring country that supports M23; on April 30th the target was Joseph Kabila, Congo’s president from 2001 to 2019, whom America accuses of aiding the rebels. There have been talks between America and Congo over military training and intelligence-sharing. Erik Prince, an American military contractor hired by Congo, helped its army retake a city in South Kivu earlier this year, according to Reuters.
Exactly how the war will end is unclear. A military victory for one side is unlikely; a comprehensive political agreement will take huge effort. The longer the conflict goes on, the more likely it is that the Kivus will become, like rebel-held parts of Yemen, Sudan or Libya, a state within a state. Think of the conflict as both a civil war and a proxy war. It is a civil war because M23, led by Congolese Tutsis, is fighting a Congolese state that it says discriminates against minorities. It is a proxy war in that Rwanda, itself led by a Tutsi elite, sees M23 as a way to project power. It says it is threatened by the Congolese army and the FDLR, a group of ethnic Hutus whose presence in the Kivus dates back to the Congo wars fought in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide of 1994. Abundant mineral resources provide extra reasons to fight. Two main initiatives are intended to curb the violence. The first, led by America, is between Congo and Rwanda. (Mr Trump often cites ending war in Congo as a reason why he deserves the Nobel peace prize, but the fighting continues.) The second, mediated by Qatar, is between Congo and M23. There are concerns that the conflict will spread to Katanga, the copper-rich region to the south. M23 has ramped up recruitment and cut deals with allied militias; it may have 38,000 fighters, notes a report by the Congo Research Group (CRG), an institute at New York University. Congo is hiring more mercenaries and using more drones. In March a drone strike killed a UNICEF worker in Goma; the blast was next to a Kabila family house. M23 is also creating its own de facto government. “We are activating a new administration,” says Mr Nangaa. Since late 2021, when the group began its latest assault on the Kivus, it has replaced hundreds of civil servants. Chiefs who wield influence in rural areas, especially over land, have been swapped. Officials receive training in M23 “ideology”. Goma is undergoing what might be called, after the Rwandan capital, Kigalification. Every Saturday residents participate in salongo, a forced city- beautification exercise. Motorbike-taxi riders have been made to wear helmets and join a new association. A new police force has a near-identical uniform to its Rwandan counterpart.