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Sprint projectJun 14, 2025Paris

Treaty Enforcement in China

Jack Stennett · Team JackAI

Submitted to Red Teaming A Narrow Path: ControlAI Policy Sprint. Sprint projects are early-stage work by participants, not Apart Research publications.

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Report: Treaty Enforcement in China

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This report red-teams A Narrow Path’s international treaty proposal by stress-testing its assumptions in the Chinese context. It identifies key failure modes—regulatory capture, compute-based loopholes, and covert circumvention—and proposes adjustments to improve enforceability under real-world political conditions.

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Does the analysis realistically assess what government agencies, resources, and expertise would be needed to implement these policies? Are the identified implementation challenges specific and grounded in understanding of how similar policies have worked (or failed) in practice? Does the submission adequately consider bureaucratic, technical, and coordination complexities involved in enforcement? How well does the analysis account for real-world constraints like budget limitations, regulatory capture, and inter-agency coordination?

Does the analysis identify specific ways the policies could fail to prevent ASI development or be circumvented by determined actors? How thoroughly does the submission examine edge cases, loopholes, or unintended consequences that could undermine the 20-year goal? Does the assessment consider different threat models (state actors, rogue researchers, corporate actors) and how policies address each? Are the identified failure modes realistic and significant, or primarily theoretical edge cases?

Does the submission cite relevant historical examples of similar policies (nuclear non-proliferation, export controls, dual-use technology regulation) to support its arguments? Are claims backed by empirical data, documented case studies, or credible expert analysis rather than speculation? How well does the analysis draw lessons from comparable regulatory domains to assess likely outcomes? Does the submission avoid making unsupported assertions about what "would" or "could" happen without evidence?

  1. This was a very interesting paper. Identified a number of issues, and proposed solutions that seem to make sense.

  2. Overall this is one of the best submissions I reviewed. The specific, granular, fact-grounded perspectives on Chinese politics and regulation were extremely thoughtful. Probably some of this could be mitigated -- for example, I'm not sure that Chinese regulators being actually independent versus just expected to do well by their political leadership is a true crux -- but overall very thoughtful!

Cite this project

@misc{stennett2025treaty,
  title = {{Treaty Enforcement in China}},
  author = {Jack Stennett},
  year = {2025},
  month = jun,
  note = {Submitted to Red Teaming A Narrow Path: ControlAI Policy Sprint, an Apart Research Sprint},
  howpublished = {\url{https://apartresearch.com/sprints/projects/red-teaming-a-narrow-path-treaty-enforcement-in-china-vb6b}},
  url = {https://apartresearch.com/sprints/projects/red-teaming-a-narrow-path-treaty-enforcement-in-china-vb6b}
}

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