China’s Ministry of Commerce on 20 October 2026 expressed “strong dissatisfaction with and firm opposition to” the US ban of DeepSeek from government systems, and said China will “take all necessary measures to resolutely safeguard its legitimate rights and interests in response to any action that substantively harms China’s interests,” according to the spokesperson’s remarks as published by the state-run Global Times. The New York Times reported that the ministry called on the United States to “withdraw” any restrictive measures.
The statement answers an order from the US Department of Homeland Security, filed for public inspection on 19 October, that removes DeepSeek products and “third-party products and services developed using DeepSeek implementations” from civilian federal agencies. The same day, China’s Foreign Ministry also responded, but in shorter terms.
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The key insight: As we read it, China’s Commerce Ministry answered the DeepSeek order with a demand and a warning but no named measure: it urged the US to revoke the order and said China will take “all necessary measures” against any action that substantively harms its interests.
The Commerce Ministry spokesperson said the US had acted “in disregard of the important common understandings reached between the Chinese and US heads of state” and had taken “discriminatory restrictive measures against Chinese AI companies” on the pretext of national security, according to Global Times. The New York Times wrote that China accused the United States of discrimination “under the pretext of so-called national security.”
The demand. China urges the US to “immediately correct its wrong practice, stop the unjustified suppression of Chinese companies, revoke its discriminatory restrictive measures,” the spokesperson said, as Global Times published it.
The channel. The ministry said it hopes the US side will “make good use of the China-US AI dialogue mechanism,” according to the same text.
The defence. The spokesperson said China has promulgated the Cybersecurity Law and the Personal Information Protection Law, and that Chinese AI companies “abide by the laws of the countries where they operate,” Global Times reported.
The warning. China “will closely follow the developments and take all necessary measures,” the spokesperson said. The statement, in the text we read, names no specific measure.
At the Foreign Ministry’s regular press conference on 20 October, spokesperson Mao Ning was asked about the order by AFP. “China consistently opposes overstretching the concept of national security and politicizing tech and trade issues. We will resolutely safeguard Chinese businesses’ lawful rights and interests,” she said, according to the ministry’s official English transcript.
Bodies that had already barred DeepSeek before the DHS order, as named by The New York Times (20-21 October 2026): the Commerce Department, Navy, DISA and NASA; Texas, New York and Virginia; France, Australia and Italy (our count). The DHS order carries an original release date of 24 July 2026.
The Line Beijing Drew in September
The Commerce Ministry had issued a warning in September, after three US agencies, including the National Security Agency, issued an advisory accusing China-based AI companies of “industrial-scale” distillation of US models. The ministry called the allegations groundless, and its spokesperson said that if the US takes actions to suppress Chinese AI companies under the pretext of countering distillation, “China will take resolute countermeasures,” according to Global Times.
The advisory named DeepSeek, Moonshot AI, Alibaba Group, MiniMax, StepFun and Z.AI, Global Times reported. The DHS order, as we reported, says “DeepSeek’s models present multiple threat vectors” and that “DeepSeek servers are located in the PRC.” As we read it, the October statement repeats the commitment to respond but, unlike September’s, ties it to any action that “substantively harms China’s interests.”
How Wide the US Bans Already Run
The DHS order is not the first US restriction, the New York Times reported in its Chinese edition. The Commerce Department, the Navy, the Defense Information Systems Agency and NASA had already banned DeepSeek, and states including Texas, New York and Virginia bar its use in government work, the paper wrote. By our count, that is seven US bodies named before the DHS order.
A spokesperson for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency told the Times on Tuesday that the heads of the Defense Department, DHS and the national intelligence program had issued new exclusion and removal orders for DeepSeek on Friday, according to the paper. The Times also wrote that DHS did not answer its questions about how deeply the targeted products are integrated.
Outside the US, France and Australia blocked DeepSeek’s technology from all government systems last year, and Italy barred its products from app stores over data-protection concerns, the Times reported. The paper added that last week China’s Commerce and Science ministries proposed new export and licensing controls on some AI technologies, a proposal it described as not yet final and as excluding open-source models already released.
What It Could Mean for US AI Firms in China
As we read it, the Commerce Ministry’s wording keeps its options open: it promises “all necessary measures” but, in the text we read, lists none. The ministry has also pointed to the dialogue channel and to the leaders’ understandings, which, as we read it, frames the order as a test of that relationship rather than only a procurement rule.
As we read it, the companies most exposed to any response are those with business inside China. Our reporting this month shows how intertwined the supply chain remains: Samsung and SK Hynix told Reuters their China plant upgrades were being done “in close consultation with Washington,” and Nvidia’s share of China’s data-centre AI chip market fell to 34% in the first half, according to IDC data cited by Reuters.
Connecting the Coverage
Our report on the DHS order set out its terms on 19 October: Exclusion and Removal Order #2026-01, with an “Original Release Date: July 24, 2026,” and covering third-party products built on DeepSeek. Its 20 October update carried Mao Ning’s response. What’s new: the Commerce Ministry’s statement, which adds the demand to revoke the order and the warning of measures.
Our follow-up on DeepInfer reported that DeepSeek open-sourced its inference framework on 20 October, with Huawei’s Ascend 950 listed as supported hardware, a day after the order was filed. Our piece on Nvidia’s China share reported IDC data showing Huawei at 28% of China’s AI accelerator market in the first half of 2026. And our update on Seoul chipmakers carried the Reuters report on Samsung and SK Hynix upgrading their China NAND plants.
The Structural Read
As we read it, the statement keeps a negotiating channel in view: it ties the order to “the important common understandings reached between the Chinese and US heads of state” and asks the US to “make good use of the China-US AI dialogue mechanism.”
As we read it, the framing has shifted since September. That warning was tied to US actions taken “under the pretext of countering distillation”; the October statement is framed around national security, the ground the DHS order itself cites.
As we read it, the US list was already long: the Times names four federal bodies and three states that had barred DeepSeek before the DHS order, and it reports a CISA spokesperson describing new orders from the Defense Department, DHS and the national intelligence program.
China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning, 20 October 2026
“China consistently opposes overstretching the concept of national security and politicizing tech and trade issues.”
Three Implications
FEDERAL SOFTWARE VENDORS The DHS order covers “third-party products and services developed using DeepSeek implementations,” according to our report on its text.
US COMPANIES IN CHINA China’s Commerce Ministry says it will take “all necessary measures” against any action that substantively harms its interests; in the text we read, it names none.
THE AI DIALOGUE The ministry asked the US to “make good use of the China-US AI dialogue mechanism,” according to Global Times.
The framework argues that AI’s physical constraints are creating “geopolitical leverage that operates independently of who has the best models.”
As we read it, the DeepSeek dispute shows the same logic at the software layer: a model that Vals AI said scored higher than GPT-6 Sol on one cyber task was still excluded from US civilian agencies, and Beijing has replied with a warning. The framework was published in December 2025, is about minerals and physical supply chains, and does not discuss DeepSeek.
What Is Not Established
We could not locate the Commerce Ministry’s statement on its own website when we checked on 21 October; the quotations come from the spokesperson’s remarks as published by Global Times and from the New York Times. The Foreign Ministry quotation is from its official transcript. China has not said what measures it might take, and DeepSeek did not immediately respond to the Times, the paper reported.
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China’s Commerce Ministry said on 20 October 2026 that it firmly opposes the US order removing DeepSeek from federal civilian agencies, urged Washington to revoke it, and said China will take “all necessary measures” against any action that substantively harms its interests. The Foreign Ministry said China opposes “overstretching the concept of national security.” In September, the ministry had warned of “resolute countermeasures” over US actions taken in the name of countering distillation. As we read it, Beijing has answered the order so far in words, without naming a measure.
A note on sourcing. This piece is built on China’s Foreign Ministry transcript of 20 October 2026, the Commerce Ministry spokesperson’s remarks as published by the state-run Global Times, and The New York Times’ English and Chinese editions, all read on 21 October 2026, plus our own earlier coverage, which cites its sources. Counts are our counts. We did not contact the ministries, DHS or DeepSeek. Nothing here is legal, financial or investment advice.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
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