China is growing anxious that Anthropic’s Mythos could be wielded against the world’s second-biggest economy, adding a volatile new issue to already-heightened tensions before a planned summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump.

Officials in Beijing are concerned about the cyber capabilities of Mythos and other artificial intelligence frontier models developed by U.S. companies, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified discussing sensitive matters. They see the potential for models such as Mythos to be used as an offensive weapon, and question why Anthropic is denying China access to the systems for normal purposes, the people said.

China wants to preserve a relatively warm atmosphere before Xi’s planned Sept. 24 visit to the U.S. and is seeking a “win-win” approach at AI talks expected before the leaders meet, the people said. Even so, suspicion remains high between the governments, with the U.S. expressing concern that Chinese companies are using American frontier models to train their own versions.