AI as Cultural Infrastructure: Cohesion, Pluralism, and the Political Economy of Cultural Production in EU–China 3.0

As EU–China relations enter a "3.0" phase marked by derisking and ideological divergence, this article examines how the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the European Union (EU) use and regulate AI in cultural production and preservation—an area neglected by discourse focused on technology and supply chains. It argues that cultural AI functions as political-economic infrastructure shaped by each actor's governance philosophy. Drawing on Jasanoff (2004), Mann (1984), Scott (1998), and Mazzucato (2018), the article shows how political leaders embed their beliefs into cultural AI systems. The Chinese Communist Party uses cultural AI to promote national unity, streamline governance, and project national culture, embedding content controls directly into the technology. The European Commission, Europeana Foundation, and EU member states instead treat cultural AI as a public good supporting diversity, rights, and open governance—an approach prone to fragmentation and slower growth. This divergence extends to minority-language AI: the EU frames it as inclusion and rights protection, while China uses it for both preservation and monitoring, absorbing minorities into a unified system. The article concludes that the EU's approach offers an alternative to China's, positioning cultural control as a central concern for European technological sovereignty.