China’s official newspaper People’s Daily published a September 16 commentary under the authoritative byline Zhong Sheng rejecting U.S. allegations related to AI-model distillation and stating that the claims lack factual and legal basis. The piece used a title translated as Politicizing Technical Issues, the Old Routine of U.S. Hegemony and said China would take countermeasures if the United States used the allegations as a pretext to suppress Chinese companies. The warning was conditional on such actions occurring.
The commentary responded to a September 8 joint advisory hosted by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, issued with the National Security Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, alleging activities related to AI-model distillation by Chinese firms. The advisory summarized the allegations as presented by U.S. authorities and identified specific companies.
Allegations in the U.S. Advisory
The September 8 joint advisory alleged that Chinese firms pursued industrial-scale distillation of U.S. frontier AI models. It named six companies: DeepSeek, Moonshot AI, Alibaba, MiniMax, StepFun, and Z.AI. These entity references and the nature of the alleged practices are set out in the advisory. The document characterizes the conduct as a security concern and provides guidance aligned with that assessment.
Whether the alleged practices occurred is not established here. The advisory is an official statement of U.S. agencies detailing their position on the asserted activities and the entities identified. It is the record to which the September 16 People’s Daily commentary directly responded. No additional factual claims beyond those contained in the advisory are presented here, and no further entities are added beyond the six named in that document.
The advisory’s content and publication date provide the immediate context for the exchange of positions. It placed specific allegations, including the scope and actors cited, on the record of U.S. public documentation. This record is the basis for the subsequent statements from the Chinese side as reflected in the People’s Daily commentary.
People’s Daily’s Framing and Conditional Warning
In its September 16 commentary, People’s Daily rejected the U.S. allegations and asserted that they lack factual and legal foundation. It described the U.S. approach as politicizing and weaponizing what it characterized as a technical and commercial practice. These are People’s Daily’s positions and characterizations, presented under the Zhong Sheng byline as an official stance within Chinese discourse.
The commentary further stated that China would take countermeasures if the United States used the claims as a pretext to suppress Chinese companies. The condition attached to that warning is explicit: it ties any potential response to subsequent U.S. actions rather than announcing immediate measures. The commentary did not enumerate specific countermeasures or a timeline for action. It also did not explicitly name DeepSeek, Moonshot AI, Alibaba, MiniMax, StepFun, or Z.AI, the six companies identified in the U.S. advisory.
The framing in People’s Daily places emphasis on contesting the basis of the allegations and the manner in which the U.S. authorities characterized the underlying technical and commercial issues. It positions the dispute as one over the legitimacy of the claims and the implications of invoking them in pressure on Chinese firms. No new allegations are introduced by People’s Daily regarding U.S. entities, and no acceptance of the U.S. claims is indicated.
What Is Established on the Record
Two dated public documents establish the central facts of the dispute. First, the September 8 joint advisory by U.S. agencies alleges industrial-scale distillation of U.S. frontier models and names six companies: DeepSeek, Moonshot AI, Alibaba, MiniMax, StepFun, and Z.AI. Second, the September 16 People’s Daily commentary rejects the allegations, characterizes them as lacking factual and legal basis, asserts that the United States is politicizing and weaponizing a technical and commercial practice, and warns of countermeasures if the allegations are used as a pretext to suppress Chinese companies. Those countermeasures are conditional and unspecified.
The scope of named entities is limited to the six companies listed in the U.S. advisory. The Chinese response addresses the advisory’s framing and asserted basis rather than individual firms, and it does not repeat or endorse any claim about specific actors. No additional companies, dates, or technical details beyond those in the advisory and the commentary are included here. The record consists of an allegation-and-rebuttal sequence anchored to the two publication dates.
The positions described are confined to what is contained in the advisory and the commentary. No conclusion is drawn here as to whether the alleged practices did or did not occur. The status of the allegations remains as presented by the U.S. advisory, and the status of the rebuttal remains as presented by People’s Daily. Any further clarification would require additional official documents or statements from the same sources or other competent authorities.
The dispute also belongs to a wider policy context in which Washington is pursuing restrictions involving China’s AI supply chain, a direction covered in EastFrontier’s report on the MATCH Act. China’s response, meanwhile, arrives amid its domestic push for AI ethics review rules, though the People’s Daily commentary does not cite those rules.