China protests the US Deepseek ban while blocking ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini at home

The US is banning Deepseek from government systems, and Beijing is calling it discrimination. Yet China locks out foreign AI far more strictly. The protest is still more than political theater. The US Department of Homeland Security recently ordered civilian federal agencies to remove all products from Chinese AI company Deepseek from their IT systems. The ban also covers software from other vendors built on Deepseek's open-source models, and it prohibits future purchases. Washington says it's worried Beijing could access sensitive data through Deepseek. China has now pushed back hard. The Foreign Ministry accuses the US of stretching the concept of national security too far, while the Commerce Ministry is demanding the ban be lifted and has vowed to take resolute countermeasures.