China’s tech infiltration poses an urgent national security risk

Totalitarian regimes cannot tolerate criticism, and China is no exception. The Chinese Communist Party’s Great Firewall is not just about restricting information within its borders — it is a deliberate effort to suppress dissent worldwide.

Now, China has a new tool for repression: DeepSeek, an AI model built using U.S. chips. Weak export controls under the Biden administration allowed China to achieve an artificial intelligence breakthrough once thought to be years away.

Competition with China isn’t a game. It’s time to stop letting Beijing gain an unfair advantage, whether through illicit means or simply by ceding ground.

Like TikTok, DeepSeek is poised to become a propaganda tool for the CCP. The model is already censoring content deemed a threat to “state power,” including references to Tiananmen Square, Hong Kong’s Umbrella Revolution, and even Winnie the Pooh. This level of content control — extending beyond information to influence minds — poses a direct and urgent threat to U.S. national security.

The Chinese Communist Party has repeatedly used technology to target U.S. interests. For years, Americans have downloaded TikTok, unaware that the app functions…