We’re only a month into the new year and the most talked-about apps have been TikTok, RedNote, and DeepSeek. What’s remarkable is that they are all made by Chinese companies—the latest evidence that ostensible national security concerns won’t stop American users from flocking to Chinese apps.
What a twist. When TikTok became a global cultural phenomenon, many saw it as the exception, not the norm—most people outside China weren’t using Chinese apps (not even super app WeChat, which Facebook sought to imitate). But the popularity of RedNote and DeepSeek shows that Chinese tech companies remain hyper-competitive and haven’t stopped innovating.
Behind the Great Firewall, Chinese digital products have to constantly compete with each other for a slice of consumers’ mindshare and spending, which has spurred an incredible pace of imitation, iteration, and innovation. While China used to be seen as a copycat nation, it’s now the indisputable global leader in technologies like EVs, drones, and robots. TikTok exemplified what Chinese tech companies excel at: design (the infinite scroll interface), functionality (how easy it was to create a video with background music), and most of all superb engineering (the addictive algorithm). Similarly, RedNote’s success lies in its powerful internal search engine. Other Chinese apps that have made headway globally, like Shein and Temu, built an edge with their cheap cost.
The same dynamic is now playing out in AI. Initial large language models out of China all aimed to replicate what ChatGPT could do and were deemed second-rate. But the launch of DeepSeek’s R1 model, which matched OpenAI’s o1 at a dramatically lower cost, upended the assumption. DeepSeek skyrocketed to the top free app in Apple’s App Store in the U.S. (and 51 other countries), overtaking ChatGPT.
More small players will soon enter the fray with their own AI models, using DeepSeek’s training methods. And as AI models become more of a commodity, just like electricity, the differentiating factor comes from having a better cost structure, much like how China came to dominate other high-tech industries—from consumer electronics to solar panels. The U.S. stock market panic on Jan. 27 and industry reactions of shock, awe, and paranoia point to that realization.
Yet, while the American public has enthusiastically embraced DeepSeek, policymakers are once again touting potential national security risks. Some of these concerns may have merit: the free chatbot self-censors when it comes to politically sensitive topics like Xi Jinping and Taiwan; user data is also stored in servers in China.
But this discourse, and how it echoes that of TikTok, is a troubling sign of Washington embracing a techno-nationalist stance that’s increasingly insular—especially in an age of AI when diffusion is inevitable, and technological progress won’t be locked up behind paywalls and within centralized infrastructure. Should American policymakers go down the path of another nationwide ban (using the “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act”), that sets the U.S. on a dangerous slippery slope. America may end up banning any and all Chinese apps that gain traction among U.S. users. And why stop at China? Fears of foreign manipulation will always exist as long as any country outside the U.S. comes up with the next trendy app.
Such a protectionist posture is a reversal from the vision of openness, free expression, and vibrant competition that the U.S. has long championed since the advent of the open web. Policymakers’ support of this vision now looks contingent—they champion open access when American tech companies are superior enough to maintain market dominance; but when other competitors emerge, they cite national security threats to keep them out. Instead of competing through innovation, the U.S. is veering toward export controls, entity listings, and nationwide bans. That’s concerning because the country is ceding valuable opportunities to learn from and compete with apps emerging from outside its sphere of influence.
While some argue that China has long banned U.S. social media apps, and that this is merely tit-for-tat, it wasn’t too long ago that American tech executives and policymakers criticized China for its censorship apparatus. Washington taking a page out of Beijing’s playbook may ironically lead to the U.S. building a Great Firewall of its own.
There’s also a clear disconnect between lawmakers and the American public. When TikTok briefly went dark on Jan. 19, RedNote shot to the top of download charts in the U.S., becoming a haven for TikTok refugees who wanted to protest the government ban.
Like TikTok, DeepSeek’s success has created a rift between those who are invested in outcompeting China and those who benefit from affordable access to the best AI model. The fact that DeepSeek’s models are open source—anyone can freely use, modify, and distribute their models, unlike closed, proprietary models built by OpenAI and Anthropic—flies in the face of arguments that the Chinese company is undermining American innovation.
Banning Chinese apps may boost U.S. alternatives in the short term, but in the long run it also risks isolating America from breakthroughs elsewhere. To reach super-intelligence first, America needs to outcompete and out-innovate China by accelerating innovation, enhancing market competition, and adopting new efficiencies —not by restricting access and building monopolies at home.
The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.
Read more:
- The 8 things most people missed about DeepSeek
- What is Xiaohongshu, the Chinese app also known as RedNote that’s topping the charts ahead of a possible TikTok ban?
- ‘TikTok refugees’ turning to RedNote are rushing to learn Mandarin on Duolingo
- DeepSeek is the hottest new AI chatbot—but it comes with Chinese censorship built in
