In the context of an escalating US-China system rivalry and the concurrent Artificial Intelligence (AI) boom, Chinese establishment intellectuals are increasingly calling attention to the purported ‘threats’ posed by Silicon Valley’s AI advances. By embracing the concept of sociotechnical imaginaries alongside the deconstructive impetus of critical geopolitics, this chapter critically analyses a sample of these Chinese-language works. What emerges is a multi-faceted national imagining of ‘danger’ supported by specific speech acts presenting ‘American AI’ as extensions of American military power, as vehicles of capitalist predation, and as sociomaterial forces aiming to undermine Chinese national identity. These elite-driven speech acts are followed by prescriptions outlining exceptional measures deemed necessary to protect China’s national, ideological, and economic security. While recognizing the mutually reinforcing hostility between these imaginaries and hawkish discourses emerging from the American foreign policy establishment, it is argued that such rigid, nationalistic understandings undermine postdigital praxis by supporting the tighter national management of information flows, citizens, and the political economy of education. Nevertheless, understanding these influential Chinese voices highlights the need for more emancipatory, inclusive AI counter-imaginaries as well as more imaginative pathways towards building global technological governance.