Web Desk: China has strongly rejected allegations from US security agencies and treasury officials claiming Chinese technology firms engage in "aggressive, malicious, and targeted" model distillation of American artificial intelligence systems. Following a joint advisory issued by the FBI, NSA, and CISA accusing six Chinese firms including DeepSeek, Alibaba, and Moonshot AI of systematically extracting capabilities from US frontier models like Claude, GPT, and Gemini, Beijing's Ministry of Commerce and Foreign Ministry pushed back on Wednesday.
Chinese officials defended model distillation as a standard, neutral industry practice used worldwide and warned of retaliatory measures should Washington use these claims as a pretext for economic containment. The diplomatic confrontation comes ahead of scheduled talks between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, where bilateral AI safety frameworks are expected to be discussed.
The dispute highlights growing geopolitical tensions over artificial intelligence infrastructure and technological dominance. US cyber defense agencies alleged that Chinese firms used millions of automated queries across thousands of fraudulent accounts to extract proprietary capabilities from American AI models to train their own systems cost effectively.
In response, China’s Ministry of Commerce argued that US accusations lack factual and legal grounding, serving primarily to maintain American control over computing infrastructure and data. Amid the escalating exchange, Chinese open weight AI champion DeepSeek announced an "unprecedented" recruitment drive to hire over 150 senior backend engineers to overhaul infrastructure strained by surging global user demand.
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning urged Washington to cease groundless smearing and focus on constructive intergovernmental dialogue on AI governance ahead of the planned leadership summit.
