American capitalism promised to realise the fictitious American Dream based on individual freedom, freedom to choose, and the ability to access goods and services necessary for the fulfilment of individual needs and desires for a prosperous life built on hard work, determination, and perseverance. Free markets, freedom of speech, freedom of thought and action, free choice, and free competition were promoted as the gold standards of American capitalism in practice. However, rising inequalities, poverty, and unemployment have ruined the supercilious global scam called the American Dream, which provided ideological cover for free-market American capitalism and its many failures.
The United States Department of Commerce has banned the use of the Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) model DeepSeek on government devices. This bipartisan ban forms part of the “No DeepSeek on Government Devices Act,” introduced by U.S. Representatives Josh Gottheimer and Darin LaHood in 2025 in the name of national security and privacy. It is a masterclass in American capitalist hypocrisy: celebrate everything American to uphold American monopoly, but if the innovation is Chinese, first try to undermine it, and if that strategy fails, ban it. There is no genuine free competition under capitalism, and there is absolutely no real space for autonomy under American capitalism. It is all about corporate monopoly, where individual choices are not only expensive but also constrained by one’s ability to pay, subscribe, and gain access.
Concerns over data privacy and national security are merely a pretext for banning DeepSeek, as its emergence sounded a death knell for profit-driven AI corporations. DeepSeek is based on open-source software, and its language model is more dynamic than many American AI models. It is also free to use. Such an idea is anathema to American capitalism. American capitalism is increasingly unsettled by Chinese innovations. From electric vehicles and batteries to mobile technologies and DeepSeek, Chinese innovations are challenging the very foundations of a capitalist system driven by profit and sustained through planned obsolescence. China, by contrast, is producing goods and services that are longer-lasting and more sustainable in economic, environmental, and social terms, while also making them more accessible to ordinary people.
The low-cost yet highly dynamic Chinese AI model DeepSeek has created shockwaves across the American AI market while exposing the limitations of many American AI models. Chinese AI models are not only cheaper and often free, but they also perform better in areas such as self-improvement, risk assessment, and vulnerability detection. American AI models are more commercially driven, often more biased, and less perceptive, whereas Chinese AI models seek to minimise bias and remain counter-intuitive in ways that make the technology more user-friendly and accessible. Such a model undermines the planned monopoly of American AI companies and disrupts their business strategies. The American Dream begins to collapse when confronted with genuine competition from Chinese AI models.
China is not only developing dynamic AI systems such as DeepSeek. It is also advancing new models of global AI governance through the establishment of the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organisation (WAICO), an intergovernmental body with 29 signatory countries headquartered in Shanghai. At the recently concluded World AI Conference in Shanghai on 17 July, President Xi Jinping called for greater international cooperation in AI innovation and governance while opposing all forms of AI and technological monopoly by any single country. China’s AI policy is shaped by the principles of “openness, collaboration, and sharing,” as articulated by Xi Jinping. By contrast, American, British, and European AI models remain driven primarily by profit and geopolitical dominance. China advocates mutual learning and consensus-building in the global governance of AI and technology to ensure that AI is available, accessible, and serves people in their everyday lives. In this context, the ban on DeepSeek is designed to disempower people by using technology to prioritise profit over public benefit. This, according to its critics, has become the defining American strategy.
China’s strategy is clear. It seeks to create an AI-led technological revolution that serves people beyond China’s borders. This form of technological internationalism is designed to build governance models based on cooperation and solidarity through the sharing of technological knowledge and skills to empower people in their everyday lives. This fundamental difference between the Chinese approach and the American and European approaches to AI reveals not only ideological differences but also exposes what critics describe as anti-people technological revolutions led by AI corporations in Europe, Britain, and the United States. The Chinese state is using AI-driven technologies not only to empower people but also to deepen democracy and strengthen citizenship rights.
The ban on DeepSeek is not merely a ban on a Chinese AI model; it is an assault on the free and open-source software movement itself. By restricting access to an affordable and open AI platform, the ban undermines the conditions necessary for making artificial intelligence widely available and accessible in the service of ordinary people. It also exposes a deeper contradiction within American capitalism. Whenever American corporate monopoly is threatened, the rhetoric of free markets quickly gives way to the politics of protectionism, where monopoly is defended at the expense of genuine competition, innovation, and affordable products and services.
The DeepSeek ban also reveals two contrasting models of state intervention in technological development. The American state appears to act primarily to safeguard the commercial interests of powerful technology corporations, while the Chinese state presents the promotion of AI technologies such as DeepSeek as part of a broader strategy to expand technological access and public benefit. This contrast reflects competing visions of the relationship between the state, technology, people and society. If artificial intelligence is to become a tool for advancing human development rather than corporate profit, it is imperative to challenge the concentration of AI power in the hands of American, British, and European technology corporations and to support technological models that make AI more affordable, accessible, and beneficial to people across the world.
