The Department of Commerce responded to reporters’ questions on the notice issued by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on federal procurement exclusion and removal orders targeting Chinese companies.

Question: On October 19, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced that it would ban civilian administrative agencies of the U.S. federal government from purchasing products and services developed by Chinese artificial intelligence company Deep Search and its affiliates, and required that related products and services be removed from the information systems of relevant agencies. What is the Ministry of Commerce’s comment on this?

A: We have noticed the relevant situation. China is strongly dissatisfied and firmly opposed to this.

The Chinese government attaches equal importance to development and security, adheres to the concept of "people-oriented, intelligence for good", ensures that artificial intelligence is safe, controllable, and reliable, and promotes the development of artificial intelligence on a compliant, trustworthy, and good track. It has promulgated a number of laws and regulations such as the Cybersecurity Law and the Personal Information Protection Law to protect network security and data privacy in accordance with the law. Chinese artificial intelligence companies have always been committed to providing safe and reliable services to global users and abiding by the laws of the countries where they are located, and have been widely welcomed by users around the world.

The United States ignores the important consensus reached by the heads of state of China and the United States, ignores the overall situation of China-U.S. economic and trade relations, and adopts discriminatory restrictive measures against Chinese artificial intelligence companies on the grounds of so-called national security. This is a typical behavior of generalizing the concept of national security and abusing administrative means to suppress Chinese companies. In essence, it politicizes and instrumentalizes science and technology economic and trade issues, and uses the name of national security to suppress and contain them. This seriously damages the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese enterprises, undermines the market environment of fair competition, and interferes with normal commercial cooperation between China and the United States in the field of artificial intelligence.

China urges the United States to respect facts and market laws, immediately correct its wrong practices, stop unreasonable suppression of Chinese companies, lift relevant discriminatory restrictive measures, and create good conditions for normal exchanges and cooperation between companies of the two countries. It is hoped that the United States will earnestly implement the important consensus reached by the two heads of state, work with China halfway, make good use of the Sino-US artificial intelligence dialogue mechanism, enhance mutual trust, manage differences, and jointly promote artificial intelligence for good. China will pay close attention to the development of the situation and will take all necessary measures to firmly safeguard its legitimate and legitimate rights and interests against any behavior that substantially harms China's interests.