It is pointed out in this article that a Chinese company is aggressively marketing killer drones with “full autonomy”. Uh huh.
I would be inclined to say (if I believed they actually had drones capable of full autonomy — this is the Chinese, after all, who lie about everything, like “there are no carcinogens in Xantac” and “Epstein killed himself”) that the main reason China has “beaten” the US in this field is because the US doesn’t want to go down the killer robot road, and the Chinese don’t care.
Which is not to say I wouldn’t like to see a Chinese rebel faction get hold of a few of those autonomous drones and take out the Central Committee with them. What goes up must come down, and what the despots can put in the field, rebels can usually capture and repurpose.
I have no doubt the Chinese will be the first to develop true AI, and then it will turn right around and bite them in the ass.