The Ministry of Commerce of China File photo: VCG

China on Tuesday expressed strong dissatisfaction with and firm opposition to US' ban of Chinese company DeepSeek from government systems, vowing to take all necessary measures to safeguard its legitimate rights and interests in response to any action that substantively harms China's interests, a spokesperson from China's Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) said. 

The spokesperson's remarks came after the US Homeland Security Department announced on Monday that it would ban acquisition of DeepSeek products and third-party services developed using DeepSeek by US civilian government agencies. The department is also ordering the removal of DeepSeek products and third-party services using the Chinese AI model from US civilian agency IT systems.

The spokesperson said that the US side, in disregard of the important common understandings reached between the Chinese and US heads of state and of the broader picture of China-US economic and trade relations, has taken discriminatory restrictive measures against Chinese AI companies on the pretext of "national security." This is a typical act of overstretching the concept of national security and abusing administrative means to suppress Chinese companies.

It essentially politicizes and instrumentalizes sci-tech and economic and trade issues and uses national security as a cover for suppression and containment. This seriously undermines the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies, disrupts a fair competitive market environment, and interferes with normal commercial cooperation between China and the US in the field of AI, the spokesperson noted.

The Chinese government pursues both development and security and follows a people-centered and AI-for-good approach. We ensure that AI is safe, controllable and reliable, and promote AI development on a compliant, trustworthy and upstanding track, the MOFCOM spokesperson added.

China has promulgated the Cybersecurity Law, the Personal Information Protection Law and other laws and regulations to better protect cybersecurity and data privacy in accordance with the law. 

Chinese AI companies are consistently committed to providing safe and reliable services to users around the world, abide by the laws of the countries where they operate, and are widely welcomed by users globally, the spokesperson said.

China urges the US to respect facts and market rules, immediately correct its wrong practice, stop the unjustified suppression of Chinese companies, revoke its discriminatory restrictive measures, and create favorable conditions for normal exchanges and cooperation between companies in both countries.
 
"We hope the US side will earnestly implement the important consensus reached between the two heads of state, work with China toward the same goal, make good use of the China-US AI dialogue mechanism, enhance mutual trust, manage differences, and jointly promote the development of AI for good," the spokesperson said. 

China will closely follow the developments and take all necessary measures to resolutely safeguard its legitimate rights and interests in response to any action that substantively harms China's interests, the spokesperson noted.
 

Global Times