Beijing Clears DeepSeek and MiniMax to Keep Their AI Models Flowing to the World
DeepSeek and MiniMax have cleared Beijing's new export registration, letting them keep open sourcing and licensing models abroad. The approval calms developers, and confirms China now runs a gate on its AI exports.
One week after Beijing drew a line around 23 AI technologies, the two Chinese labs the rest of the world leans on most have been waved through. DeepSeek and MiniMax have completed China's new export registration and are carrying on with open source releases and overseas licensing, according to Yuyuan Tantian, an influential social media account affiliated with state broadcaster CCTV, as reported by the South China Morning Post.
That is good news for every startup and enterprise team running DeepSeek or MiniMax weights on its own hardware. It is also a reminder of something that was easy to ignore until last week. There is now a gate, and Beijing holds the key.
The account posted late on Thursday, October 22. Neither DeepSeek nor MiniMax immediately replied to Reuters' requests for comment, so for now the only word on the approvals comes from a state media channel with an obvious interest in calming nerves.
"Since the policy was announced, leading companies DeepSeek and MiniMax have successfully completed the registration process" Yuyuan Tantian, as quoted by The Business Times
The nerves were real. On October 16 the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Science and Technology proposed adding export restrictions and outright bans covering large language models, AI agents and computing clusters, a plan we covered when China first signalled tighter control over advanced AI. The catalogue itself is still a draft, open for public comment until November 15. But one piece took effect immediately: anyone exporting a covered technology has to register first, including deals already under way. That raised an obvious question: were China's fast growing open weight models about to get stuck at the border?
Yuyuan Tantian's answer is a firm no, at least for the big names. The post said the catalogue is meant to "define boundaries rather than simply restrict the export of AI technology," and added a line aimed squarely at Chinese founders.
"AI companies can continue their commercialisation efforts as usual." Yuyuan Tantian
The fine print matters more than the reassurance. According to the post and the commerce ministry's own explanations, offering models through an API, a web app or a software as a service product is not covered, even when the model underneath is restricted. Technology already made public through open publication or academic papers is exempt too. What is controlled is deploying restricted models locally outside China, the setup a foreign company uses to run a model on its own servers. The ministry has said some of those cases, such as a Chinese firm running models on its own overseas cloud, could get simplified or automatic licensing.
Read that carefully and the shape of the policy comes into view. Chinese AI can flow freely to the world as a service, routed through Chinese companies. The riskier act of handing over capabilities a foreign operator fully controls now needs a permission slip. DeepSeek and MiniMax have theirs. Everyone else has been told to queue up: in a second post on Friday, Yuyuan Tantian said overseas internet users had urged other Chinese open source model makers to follow suit.
The account also took a swipe at Washington, accusing the US of using targeted export bans and technology blockades to protect its dominance.
"China, however, is not following this path." Yuyuan Tantian
That contrast is convenient, and only partly true. Beijing has shown it will intervene when it sees strategic value walking out the door, most visibly when it forced the unwinding of Meta's acquisition of Manus, the AI agent startup with Chinese roots. Algorithms have sat on China's export control list since 2020, added after the first Trump administration moved against TikTok. The new catalogue is that same instinct, applied to models.
For developers, the immediate fear of a sudden cutoff has eased. But the approval cuts both ways. A registration that can be granted in days can, in principle, be slow walked or refused, and the final catalogue has not been published. The world's favourite cheap open models now come with a quiet dependency on a ministry in Beijing, and anyone building a business on them should price that in.
