By Jia Fei-mao and Entorno | 2025-04-10

China's artificial intelligence (AI) sector has advanced rapidly, raising concerns that it could be used as a tool for censorship.

The launch of Chinese AI models DeepSeek and Manus not only boosted the Chinese and Hong Kong stock markets but became a symbol of Beijing's push for AI competitiveness.

An editorial published in the Chinese state-run Global Times on February 19 argues that China's rapid AI breakthroughs and adoption -- what it calls "Chinese acceleration" -- are challenging the narrative that China's economic growth has peaked.

The article further asserts that through initiatives like the globe-spanning infrastructural Belt and Road Initiative, digital cooperation and international open-source projects, China's AI influence will continue to expand globally.

However, the flip side of this AI boom is strict content regulation.

Observers warn that the Chinese government may be using AI to systematically rewrite history, erase documentation of human rights violations and censor criticism of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

OpenAI on March 13 sent a letter to the White House stating that "because DeepSeek is simultaneously state-subsidized, state-controlled, and freely available, the cost to its users is their privacy and security."

The letter suggested that the US government consider banning models developed by DeepSeek and other institutions backed by the Chinese government.

Global information freedom

Former US members of Congress Loretta Sanchez and Greg Walden warned of the risks posed by China's AI dominance in an opinion piece in The Hill published on March 12.

"The winner of this race will steer the global digital ecosystem and decide what's amplified, what's buried and which set of values become the norm," they wrote.

When asked about the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, Tencent's AI model, Hunyuan, claimed that "no one was killed, and there was no massacre."

Meanwhile, Alibaba's Qwen "simply [censored] itself mid-discussion," wrote the authors, citing a study from The American Edge Project.

China's AI avoids discussing Tiananmen Square and refuses to comment on Chinese leader Xi Jinping yet freely criticizes US politics and the US president.

This silence is not merely a technical issue but a built-in double standard designed to align with the CCP narrative, they added.

Sanchez and Walden further warned: "If China's AI tools become the default, the CCP will wield unprecedented geopolitical influence, capture trillions in economic value, undermine free expression across the globe, and establish a culture molded by control, censorship and propaganda, while rewriting the past."

China has been tightening AI regulations, requiring AI-generated content to "adhere to socialist core values and refrain from producing content that incites subversion of state power, overthrows the socialist system or endangers national security and interests," Tzeng Yi-suo, an associate researcher at Taiwan's Institute for National Defense and Security Research, told Entorno affiliate website Focus.

The rise of China's AI is not just a technological issue -- it is about the future of global information freedom, he said.

If China's AI sets the global standard, censorship and data surveillance could extend beyond national borders, reaching every corner of the world, said Tzeng.

Venezuela taps Chinese AI

In Latin America, Nicolás Maduro's authoritarian Venezuelan regime is looking to harness Chinese AI to advance its political agenda.

At the end of January, the dictator announced the creation of a "national chamber of popular self-government," supposedly powered by Chinese AI, to address citizens' concerns 24/7.

However, since then Maduro has provided no further details on how his regime will implement this technology. He presents it as a tool to streamline Venezuela's bloated and notoriously corrupt bureaucracy.

With 33 ministries, Maduro's cabinet is the largest in Latin America, even though the country has just 28 million inhabitants. These ministries employ 357,000 civil servants.

"This national room is operated with new artificial intelligence technologies... with Chinese technology," Maduro declared at the time. He stressed the importance of managing AI "at the highest level with our strategic allies around the world -- with China, with Russia, with India, with Iran."