Feature | From Strict Prevention to Exploring the Boundaries: Is China's Universities' AI Battle Shifting Direction?
Translated by ChatGPT
Lianhe Zaobao
July 26, 2026
By Liu Liu (刘柳), Chongqing Correspondent
https://www.zaobao.com.sg/news/china/story20260726-9340468?utm_source=android-share&utm_medium=app
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AI Summary
Chinese universities have shifted their attitude toward AI from strict prevention in the early stages to exploring its appropriate use, with many institutions incorporating AI literacy into their curricula.
Students widely use AI to assist with thesis writing. Nearly 60% of teachers and students use generative AI frequently, giving rise to the grey industry of "AI checking AI" and services that reduce AI detection rates.
Universities are experimenting with AI thesis competitions and AI authorship, sparking debates over the boundaries of responsibility between humans and AI, while emphasizing that humans must remain in charge of research and bear ultimate responsibility.
This summary was generated with AI assistance and is for reference only.
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AI has become an increasingly important tool for university students in learning and research. The rapid advancement and widespread adoption of generative AI have prompted Chinese universities to gradually change their attitude toward the use of AI in teaching and research, taking a more proactive approach to exploring how AI can be applied appropriately.
Not long ago, Zhao Junming, a postgraduate student at Chongqing Technology and Business University, completed a graduation thesis on sports brand communication. In the approximately 60,000-word thesis, he used Google's Gemini and Alibaba's Tongyi Qianwen large language model as supporting tools to develop the framework and also used Qianwen to adjust the thesis formatting.
In an interview with Lianhe Zaobao, he said: "AI (artificial intelligence) is like someone who has read a vast amount of literature. In the past, people could at most infer three related ideas from one example, but AI models can expand far beyond that. In terms of formatting revisions, the improvement in efficiency is even more significant."
Comparing it with his undergraduate thesis two years ago, Zhao admitted that he hardly used AI then, whereas now, among his fellow postgraduate students, most use AI in their theses.
Zhao's experience is far from unique. According to a survey released in February last year by MyCOS, a Chinese higher education management data and consulting institution, nearly 60% of university teachers and students in China use generative AI daily or several times a week. Among university students, nearly 30% primarily use it for writing theses or assignments.
A University Students' AI Usage Mindset Insight Report, jointly released in September last year by China Youth Daily, China Youth Campus Media, and the social platform Soul App, also showed that 99.2% of surveyed university students had already "connected" to AI, 65.9% instinctively turned to AI first when encountering problems, and nearly half admitted they had become "unable to do without AI."
The report pointed out that AI tools have surpassed traditional search engines and social media to become university students' preferred source of information.
From Explicit Prohibition to Inclusion in the Education System
As AI has become an increasingly important learning and research tool for university students, Chinese universities have also been adjusting their approach to AI governance.
In 2023, when the generative AI platform ChatGPT sparked a global wave of interest, Chinese universities responded with heightened caution. During the 2024 graduation season, many universities successively introduced regulations governing AI use.
Among them, Fuzhou University, Hubei University, and Tianjin University of Science and Technology introduced AI detection requirements for graduation theses, incorporating detection results into the review and evaluation process. The Communication University of China required students using AI to fully disclose the model, version, usage method, and generation process.
Fudan University also clearly defined "six prohibited uses" of AI in thesis writing, including prohibiting AI tools from designing research proposals, generating or modifying original research data, and carrying out language polishing or translation.
However, with the rapid advancement and widespread adoption of generative AI, Chinese universities have gradually changed their attitude over the past year, becoming more proactive in exploring the appropriate use of AI in teaching and research.
In February last year, the National Engineering Laboratory for Big Data System Computing Technology at Shenzhen University partnered with Tencent Cloud to launch an AI general education course based on DeepSeek, the AI model developed by the Chinese AI startup DeepSeek. The course covers fundamental knowledge, technical principles, and practical applications such as AI-generated content.
Many universities, including Wuhan University, Beihang University, and Shaanxi Normal University, have also introduced related courses, incorporating AI literacy into their undergraduate education systems.
Chen Xunwei, a senior engineer who teaches advanced programming courses such as Python at Wuhan University, said in an interview that AI education is a vast system encompassing general literacy courses, technical courses, and application-oriented courses. Students come from the humanities, sciences, and engineering disciplines.
He said AI has already become a productive force, and teachers need to introduce students to the most advanced productive technologies. "If you don't use it, you'll be replaced by the competitiveness of those who do. And that competitiveness grows exponentially."
Economist Ye Xiaoyang and Shen Meng, a partner at Chanson Capital, both said in interviews that universities' changing attitude toward AI is inevitable.
Ye said universities were initially conservative because they needed to uphold academic integrity. However, once the technology becomes widespread, simply banning it becomes an inefficient form of governance.
Shen said: "AI will play an increasingly significant role in academic research, regardless of the wishes of any institution or individual." However, he also pointed out that the proper position of AI in academic research—"whether it should be an assistant or take the lead—is still open to debate."
AI Thesis Competitions Bring the Issue into the Open
While promoting AI integration into teaching, some universities have also embarked on more pioneering experiments, extending AI exploration even further.
According to information published on its official website, East China Normal University launched a large-scale social experiment in September last year called "AI First Author." Using a quasi-field experimental approach, the essay competition required AI to be listed as the first author, while humans served as collaborators and gatekeepers.
In March this year, Nanjing University, together with Tsinghua University, Fudan University, Zhejiang University, and several other universities, launched the experimental thesis competition "I Use AI to Write History."
Chen Xunwei said the background to these competitions is the dramatic progress made by generative AI over the past six months. "Previously, using AI to write a thesis required extensive interaction. Now AI can work on a project continuously for a long time, functioning like a genuine research assistant."
When these universities released the findings of their experiments in March and June this year respectively, they pointed to the same reality confronting academia: if a thesis merely presents viewpoints and logical arguments, it is increasingly difficult to demonstrate genuine academic value; in the traditional sense, academic papers are gradually losing their effectiveness as measures of scholarly achievement.
Ye Xiaoyang expressed support for the experiments. He said: "They brought an issue that had been hidden into the open, shifting the focus from 'Should we use AI?' to 'Should we face AI directly and design better systems?'"
Wang Shengyu, a research assistant at the China Analysis Center of the Asia Society Policy Institute, expressed a similar view, noting that this aligns with the explorations and practices of leading research universities around the world.
Guidelines issued in recent years by Harvard University, Cornell University, and Northwestern University on the use of generative AI in research generally allow researchers to use tools such as ChatGPT, provided that AI involvement is disclosed, outputs are manually verified, and researchers assume ultimate responsibility for AI-generated content.
Human-AI Collaboration Requires Clear Academic Responsibilities
However, East China Normal University's experiment also included publishing several papers listing AI as the first author in the Journal of East China Normal University, an academically influential publication. This attempted to extend AI exploration beyond principles of use into authorship standards, but it also sparked considerable controversy. The papers are currently no longer accessible on the journal's website.
Critics argue that the core principle of academic authorship is accountability. AI may serve as an assisting tool but cannot replace humans as the primary academic actors or those ultimately responsible.
In a commentary titled AI Is the "Co-pilot" of Scientific Research; Humans Must Keep Their Hands Firmly on the Steering Wheel, Beijing Youth Daily argued that the experiment marks the beginning of an era of human-AI co-governance in academia and represents an attempt to break new ground. Its greatest value lies in clarifying the boundaries of rights and responsibilities between humans and AI in scientific research.
Chen Xunwei believes this is an issue the academic community will inevitably have to address because "AI models are evolving too quickly. Most regulations inevitably lag behind, but this kind of exploration is necessary."
Shen Meng, however, said universities exist primarily to cultivate professional skills. If AI takes on leading roles such as first authorship, teachers and students will not receive sufficient training or improve their abilities. "That runs counter to the objectives of higher education."
False Positives in AI Detection of Original Work Give Rise to an Abnormal Industry Chain of "AI Checking AI"
Even as AI's role in academic research continues to be debated, universities have widely introduced AI-generated content detection during thesis reviews, creating new problems.
Chinese universities use AI systems to detect whether students' writing overlaps with AI-generated content in terms of language and expression. However, AI detection platforms use inconsistent standards and often mistakenly flag original work, forcing students to spend additional time repeatedly revising their papers to reduce AI detection rates, trapping them in the vicious cycle of "AI checking AI, then using AI to evade AI."
According to reports by the National Business Daily, the Economic Observer, and several other Chinese media outlets, some students, in order to meet university AI detection thresholds, have turned to online "AI rate reduction" services. Platforms such as Taobao, Pinduoduo, and Xiaohongshu have consequently spawned a distorted industry chain.
Ye Xiaoyang said it is understandable why universities use AI to detect AI, but the outcome is absurd. "Students should be spending their time improving their problems, evidence, arguments, and expression. Instead, they are forced to learn how to satisfy the detector."
He believes universities should distinguish between different levels of AI use. "Using AI to correct grammar and using AI to fabricate references are not the same thing. A good system should not ask only one crude question but should ask more precise questions."
From a technical perspective, Chen Xunwei pointed out: "Using one probabilistic system to detect another probabilistic system simply doesn't work."
Wang Shengyu, meanwhile, believes this reflects administrative laziness in university management. However, changing the situation in the future may require systematic research and policy initiatives at the Ministry of Education level.
Liu Liu
Chongqing Correspondent
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