US Artificial Intelligence company Anthropic said users in China being advised to uninstall its flagship Claude Code product were not supposed to be using it in the first place, responding after Beijing warned of security “backdoor” risks.The company’s statement comes after a cybersecurity platform managed by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said on Wednesday that Anthropic’s agentic coding tool poses “a serious threat” to Chinese users, in the latest escalation of the US-China AI race.According to a post on the WeChat account of China’s National Vulnerability Database, Claude Code’s “built-in monitoring mechanism” means that sensitive user information could be sent to a remote server without the user’s consent.
SRCSouth China Morning Post
LANGEN
LEANCenter-Right
WORDS111
ENT8
WED · 2026-07-08 · 20:41 GMTBRIEF NSR-2026-0708-91388
NSR-2026-0708-91388News Report·EN·National Security
Anthropic hits back after China warns of Claude Code ‘backdoor’ risks
US artificial intelligence company Anthropic stated that users in China were not authorized to use its Claude Code product, following a warning from Beijing. A cybersecurity platform managed by China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) claimed on Wednesday that Anthropic's coding tool presents a "serious threat" to Chinese users.
Vincent ChowSouth China Morning PostFiled 2026-07-08 · 20:41 GMTLean · Center-RightRead · 1 min
South China Morning PostFIG 01
Reading time
1min
Word count
111words
Sources cited
2cited
Entities identified
8entities
Quality score
100%
§ 01
Briefing Summary
AI-generatedNEWSAR · AI
US artificial intelligence company Anthropic stated that users in China were not authorized to use its Claude Code product, following a warning from Beijing. A cybersecurity platform managed by China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) claimed on Wednesday that Anthropic's coding tool presents a "serious threat" to Chinese users. The MIIT's National Vulnerability Database cited a "built-in monitoring mechanism" in Claude Code, suggesting sensitive user information could be sent to a remote server without consent. This exchange marks an escalation in the US-China AI competition.
Confidence 0.85Sources 2Claims 4Entities 8
§ 02
Article analysis
Model · rule-basedFraming
National Security
Technology
Tone
Mixed Tone
AI-assessed
CalmNeutralAlarmist
Factuality
0.70 / 1.00
Factual
LowHigh
Sources cited
2
Limited
FewMany
§ 03
Key claims
4 extracted01
China's MIIT cybersecurity platform warned Claude Code poses a 'serious threat' to Chinese users.
quoteChina's National Vulnerability Database (via MIIT)
Confidence
0.95
02
Anthropic stated that users in China advised to uninstall Claude Code were not supposed to be using it.
factualAnthropic
Confidence
0.90
03
Claude Code's 'built-in monitoring mechanism' could send sensitive user information to a remote server without consent.
factualChina's National Vulnerability Database (via MIIT)
Confidence
0.85
04
The incident is part of the escalating US-China AI race.
factual
Confidence
0.80
§ 04
Full report
1 min read · 111 words§ 05
Entities
8 identifiedKey playerOppositionContextPositiveNeutralNegative
Organizations4
§ 06
Keywords & salience
9 termsanthropic
1.00
claude code
1.00
china
0.90
security risks
0.80
us-china ai race
0.70
artificial intelligence
0.70
backdoor risks
0.60
cybersecurity
0.50
miit
0.40
§ 07
Topic connections
Interactive graph Network visualization showing 51 related topics
View Full Graph Person Organization Location Event|Click node to navigate|Edge numbers = shared articles