The Illusory Feast of Artificial Intelligence and the Black Humor of Modern "Defense against the People": A Review of the Imperial-Style Security behind Shanghai WAIC

The Illusory Feast of Artificial Intelligence and the Black Humor of Modern "Defense against the People": A Review of the Imperial-Style Security behind Shanghai WAIC

In mid-July 2026, the Huangpu River in Shanghai was ablaze with color and light. The 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) kicked off with great fanfare. On this international stage, dubbed "Intelligent Partners, Co-Creating the Future" by officials, industry giants, scholars, and tech politicians from around the world gathered to discuss global governance of artificial intelligence, breakthroughs in computing power, and open-source ecosystems. The highest leader even attended in person to deliver a keynote speech, proclaiming to the world China's intention to play a "just and reasonable" leading role in global AI governance.

However, behind this grand event, which represents the forefront of human technology, several "internal notices" circulating on social media have torn apart the delicate veil of this tech powerhouse, revealing its extremely pre-modern authoritarian underpinnings.

On one hand, there were discussions within the conference about "large model context windows reaching 100 million tokens" and the digital carnival of intelligent body parallel processing. On the other hand, there were the absurd realities outside the conference venue, such as driving school students in Shanghai's suburbs being forced to practice driving in the dark at 5 am, and guests at luxury hotels in Lujiazui being deprived of the right to open their curtains. This "cyberpunk" spectacle not only constitutes the deepest irony and black humor towards "high tech" but also piercingly reveals the ultimate paradox of a dictatorial regime: a government that fears its own citizens' freedom of movement and even their gaze out the window, how can it discuss leading humanity's "future"?

The Absurdity of Micro-Power: Even Driving Schools Must Make Way for the "Imperial" Visit

Before the conference opened, a screenshot of a notice from a driving school coach in Shanghai circulated wildly online. The notice read bluntly and suffocatingly:

"For the next two days, there will be no pick-ups or drop-offs. Chairman Xi is coming to Shanghai, and according to regulations, our coaches can only drive on designated routes. Practice times have also been changed. Normal schedules will resume on Tuesday. Please note, before Tuesday, practice times are from 5 am to 9 am and 5 pm to 7 pm."

This was not an isolated incident. Soon after, an official "warm reminder" from the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Shanghai's Pudong area was exposed. The paper notice explicitly stated:

"To cooperate with the security work of the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference, according to the requirements of relevant departments, we need to implement information control in specific areas. Therefore, please keep your room curtains closed during the following time periods and note that the Flair terrace will be temporarily closed: July 16th (Thursday) 16:00 - 21:00, July 17th (Friday) 09:00 - 12:00."

These two seemingly unrelated notices pieced together the true landscape of when China's highest power holder visits a locality.

1. The Extremely Compressed Life of Ordinary People

For those ordinary students who were practicing driving for their licenses in the scorching summer, the arrival of the national leader did not bring them any sense of pride but instead deprived them of their most basic rest schedule. To avoid the time the leader might pass by or potential traffic control, practice times were brutally cut and adjusted to "early morning 5 am to 9 am" and "evening 5 pm to 7 pm". This meant students and coaches had to get up before dawn and participate in this political show in a state of extreme fatigue. Even a driving school on the outskirts of Shanghai, far from the political core and the AI conference venue, could not escape the absolute crush of power.

1. The "Startled Bird" Behind the Hotel Curtains

If the restrictions on driving schools were for "absolute traffic smoothness," then the requirement for hotel guests not to open their curtains exposed a nearly pathological security anxiety. The skyscrapers of Lujiazui, originally a showcase of Shanghai's capitalist prosperity and socialist achievements, had to become "blind" when the highest leader entered the area.

Forcing international and domestic guests who paid high prices to stay in five-star hotels to close their curtains, the deep logic was to prevent any potential threats from high-altitude angles — whether it be sniping, photography, or hanging protest banners. This "information control" and visual blockade, which extended even into private living spaces, assumed every person at a high location, even the elite, to be a "potential assassin" or "saboteur". Is this the demeanor a leader of a great nation with "four confidences" should have? It is clearly that of a dictator lacking security and viewing the populace as enemies.

The Bottom Color of Cyber Totalitarianism: The Lethal Paradox of a Firewall Nation Governing AI

In the "2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference and Global Governance of AI High-Level Meeting Chairman's Statement" released during the conference, the Chinese government talked extensively about "open source and openness being important paths for the universal development of AI" and declared it would "actively build an open and inclusive international open-source community".

This diplomatic rhetoric, if taken at face value, is almost flawless. But if placed within China's cruel internet reality, it triggers strong cognitive dissonance.

1. The Call for "Open Source" Built on "Non-Openness"

China is the country with the strictest internet control in the world, without exception. The notorious "Great Firewall" has tightly enclosed 1.4 billion Chinese people in the desert of the global internet. In a country with the least openness and most stringent censorship of information flow, its leader sits in a heavily protected venue, calling for global AI to "insist on openness and win-win, driving innovative development". This must be said to be a form of magical realism.

True AI innovation relies on the absolute freedom of information flow, unrestricted data collision, and a speech environment that permits offense and trial and error. However, in China, the first step in developing AI large models is not optimizing algorithms but undergoing cumbersome "ideological security reviews" to ensure AI responses conform to party reports and do not trigger any sensitive nerves regarding political taboos. When Alibaba's Tongyi, Baidu's Wenxin, and Tencent's Hunyuan showcase their 100 million token context capabilities on the conference floor, their underlying logic is still bound by the cage of censorship.

1. The Hypocrisy of Generalizing National Security

Xi Jinping declared in his opening speech, "We should jointly oppose the practice of generalizing the concept of national security in the field of AI, and putting one's own security above that of others."

This statement sounds like a criticism of the US's export controls on high-end chips (like NVIDIA GPUs) to China. However, ironically, the government most enthusiastic about "generalizing the concept of national security" is precisely China itself.

* Driving school practice affects national security, so it must be adjusted to 5 am;

* Hotel guests opening curtains affect national security, so information must be controlled;

* Discussing economic downturns and youth unemployment rates affects national security, so the whole network must be blocked;

* Even normal market research by foreign enterprises can be elevated to espionage.

China has generalized the concept of national security to the point of fearing even the driving practices of ordinary people. Yet, on the international stage, it accuses others of "generalizing national security". This double standard fully exhibits the hypocrisy of totalitarian politics.

Historical Mirror: From Feudal "Avoidance" to Modern "Total War Security"

China's propaganda machine often mocks Western politicians' elections as "political shows" and boasts about the efficiency and organizational strength of the Chinese system. But the two notices from Shanghai have shown the most terrifying aspect of this system: to satisfy the will or absolute security of a few rulers, the entire social machine can be mobilized at no cost in a "total war" style.

1. The New Era of "Taboo" and "Avoidance"

In China's feudal imperial era, there was a strict "avoidance" system when the emperor traveled. Local officials would clear the streets, and citizens had to kneel and welcome the imperial carriage; anyone who glimpsed the emperor's face would be severely punished. In 2026 Shanghai, the most modern and internationally connected city in China, when receiving "Chairman Xi", it cannot escape this feudal political genetic code.

The driving school's "other places are not allowed to go" is the modern version of "clearing the streets"; the hotel's "not allowed to open curtains" is the modern version of "not allowed to glimpse the emperor's face". Although the ruler's title has changed from "emperor" to "state chairman", the essence of absolute authority and the fear of being offended has not changed. Modern technology (such as high-definition surveillance, facial recognition, and big data fencing) has not weakened this privilege but has given the ruler more efficient and thorough social cleansing capabilities than ancient emperors.

1. The Double Blow to Elites and Commoners

In this security storm, whether it be the social underclass of driving school students or the elites and foreign merchants who can afford to stay in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, all have suffered the same "dimensionality reduction".

* For the underclass, power uses crude administrative orders to adjust your time, seize your vehicles, and you must silently endure because you have no channel to voice your grievances.

* For the elites, even if you pay expensive room fees, the five-star hotel must cooperate with "relevant departments" to deprive you of your scenic view rights, and even your private space is subject to monitoring.

This indiscriminate suppression sends a clear signal: in China, no private property, personal rights, or business contracts are sacred and inviolable. In the face of "political security" and "leader security", all modern civilization achievements must be reduced to nothing in an instant.

Observation and Conclusion: The Weak Giant and the Leader under House Arrest

A truly strong, confident, and beloved leader does not need to fear the driving school cars and hotel curtains of the suburbs.

Throughout the history of human civilization, the more dictatorial and high-pressure a regime is, the more its top leader suffers from deep-seated paranoia. Stalin refused to fly and had multiple identical cars start at the same time to confuse assassins; Saddam had numerous body doubles and never spent consecutive nights in the same place. Today, in a China that claims to have risen to "strong nation status", the security protocols for the highest leader's every move are breaking historical records.

This "fully enclosed" inspection tour has become the deepest metaphor for China's current political situation:

The ruler, although possessing all-pervasive monitoring power and the most powerful digital tools in human history, has actually turned himself into a prisoner living in an absolute vacuum and sterile room. He dare not face real citizens, cannot hear even a whisper of dissent from the people, and wherever he goes, all curtains are drawn, all streets are emptied, and all passersby are arranged "mass actors".

The 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference finally came to a close amidst official self-praise and applause. Xinhua's reports will still be filled with grand narratives like "jointly creating a better future for humanity". However, history and the public will remember those forcibly closed curtains, remember those driving school cars that were forced to start at 5 am and could only move on designated routes.

A dictatorial country that relies on plagiarism and firewalls to build an information island, its fundamental purpose in heavily promoting artificial intelligence is not to liberate human productivity or pursue global welfare; it is to upgrade its "Big Brother" style of all-around surveillance architecture, to more accurately control every citizen's words and actions, and to keep 1.4 billion people forever in the darkness of "not allowed to open curtains".

This feudal zombie system, wrapped in the highest human civilization technology, no matter how glamorous it appears on the Shanghai stage, cannot hide its internal accelerating corruption and collapse. Because a regime that even censors sunlight and lines of sight is doomed to never move towards the future.