China World AI Conference Mocked: No Western Nations Attend, Turns Into A “Beggar’s Fair”

Jul 19, 2026 - 09:44

On July 17, the Shanghai Pudong World Expo Center hosted a heavily promoted event by Chinese authorities — the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC 2026). Looking back, the event was usually attended by Premier Li Qiang as a representative of the government. But this year, for the first time, Xi Jinping himself made a personal appearance. Clearly, as China faces mounting pressure from both internal challenges and external technology restrictions, Xi urgently needed a self-staged “international platform” to show the world that he is still the great leader capable of “guiding the future of human technology.”