This echoes older debates. In the 2000s, scholars like Guobin Yang argued the party couldn’t withstand the Internet—optimism about collective‑action potential. Then came the backlash: the CCP mastered control—censorship, the 50‑cent army. Now your point is that new tools may obsolete old controls. It’s cat‑and‑mouse. The party is leading the world in containing generative AI.