China has urged the United States to stop what it described as the smearing of Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) companies and threats of sanctions, arguing that such actions are unsupported by facts or legal grounds and amount to “AI hegemony.”
In a statement issued on Monday, a spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Commerce responded to reports that senior U.S. officials had called for investigations into Chinese AI developers over allegations that they had used “distillation” techniques to replicate advanced American AI models and could face sanctions over the alleged theft of U.S. intellectual property.
The ministry rejected the allegations, saying Washington was once again politicising technology and trade issues while targeting Chinese companies on what it called baseless pretexts.
“China has consistently opposed the U.S. practice of politicising and instrumentalising science and technology, economic and trade issues, as well as smearing and sanctioning Chinese companies under all sorts of groundless pretexts,” the spokesperson said.
The ministry also argued that AI model distillation is a widely accepted practice across the global technology industry, claiming that many American AI companies have themselves used Chinese models during research, development and training.
The statement further pointed to opposition from within the U.S. technology sector to potential restrictions on Chinese AI models.
According to the ministry, nearly 200 U.S. start-ups have urged the U.S. government not to restrict access to Chinese open-source AI models, warning that such measures could undermine the competitiveness of American companies. It also cited comments from multinational technology firms that described model distillation as a common industry technique and argued that U.S. companies should continue to have access to Chinese open-source AI systems.
