Escalating tensions between Washington and Beijing over artificial intelligence could derail efforts to establish international AI safety standards, analysts warn. The latest dispute centres on allegations that Chinese AI company Moonshot improperly relied on technology developed by U.S.-based Anthropic. The United States is considering sanctions against Moonshot while investigating whether Chinese firms have gained access to advanced American chips in breach of export controls. Analysts believe these developments could undermine planned diplomatic discussions on AI governance and increase the likelihood of retaliatory measures from Beijing. Paul Triolo warned that retaliation "has the potential to scuttle both the AI dialogue and the September 24 meeting between Presidents Trump and Xi." Security experts are paying increasing attention to open-weight AI models, prompting renewed calls for stronger international oversight. Yoshua Bengio said, "The logical thing to do is to find a good evaluation of these models, share the models that are not too dangerous, and not share those above the threshold of risk." Many AI specialists argue for more rigorous independent testing before public release. Kristy Loke said, "In an ideal world, the two countries will come together to work on safer models… agree to build common standards around pre-release testing." The debate has also exposed differing views within the United States; David Sacks argued that leading American developers "want the government to eliminate their open-source competition," insisting that "the U.S. will continue to win."