It seems that this directive stems from the revelation by developer Troye Sivan that Claude Code is covertly sending information like time zone and domains, targeting Chinese users. Anthropic engineer Thariq Shihipar confirmed on X that it was an experiment the company launched in June “to prevent account abuse from unauthorized resellers and protect against distillation.” He also added that “this should be fully rolled back in tomorrow’s release.”
Anthropic has already accused Chinese AI labs of distilling Claude twice — it said earlier this year that DeepSeek, alongside other Chinese developers, created 24,000 fraudulent accounts to train smaller models . It once again claimed in late June that Claude was distilled, this time by Alibaba . There have also been several reports that Claude API access is being resold in the grey market at 90% off through proxy networks.
It seems that Anthropic’s experiment has already concluded and that its tracking functions will no longer be hidden and will be baked directly into Claude Code, based on Shihipar’s statement. This is probably why the Chinese cybersecurity agency recommended that users update their Claude Code apps to the latest version. However, this is still a curious guidance — even though Claude Code is not directly banned in China, the government still requires all AI LLMs to undergo review, which Anthropic’s AI models did not go through.
Still, despite the dual bans, Chinese developers are finding ways to access Claude Code. More than that, Beijing is seemingly acknowledging this fact with its directive, telling people who use the AI tool to update their apps.
Alibaba bans Anthropic's Claude Code after an alleged hidden China-detection backdoor is uncovered
Chinese grey market sells Claude API access at 90% off by using stolen credentials, model substitution, and harvesting users' prompts and outputs for resale as AI training data
Anthropic restores Claude Fable 5 as US lifts export controls
Key considerations
- Investor positioning can change fast
- Volatility remains possible near catalysts
- Macro rates and liquidity can dominate flows
Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/china-alleges-that-claude-code-contains-backdoors-calls-mechanism-a-serious-threat-govt-claims-claude-sends-sensitive-information-to-remote-servers-without-consent#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com/subscription
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