China objectively treats AI differently than the West. Whether that constitutes a ‘fundamental’ difference I don’t know, I’m not big on that word philosophically, but the fact that Chinese private companies are providing their models open source, and you can use them free of charge (the most you will pay is a very low fee for API usage) shows a huge difference, they don’t consider it a product to make a profit on, i.e. A commodity.

AI is also not held solely by the capitalists in China, the government develops on it. Just recently Beijing schools started a pilot program to teach middle and high school students AI through science projects.

What we need to ask is what do they see in it, what this fills for them and helps them with.