Anthropic Blocks Claude Code Access in China Over Model Distillation
Anthropic is restricting access to Claude Code for developers in China, accusing DeepSeek, Alibaba, MiniMax, and Moonshot AI of parsing Claude’s inference data to train their own models. The company’s terms of service already prohibit using Anthropic services within Chinese jurisdiction, but developers have been bypassing the restrictions via VPNs, cloud providers, and Singapore-based subsidiaries. In response, Alibaba has ordered its engineers to stop using Claude Code and remove the tool entirely after scripts were discovered in the utility that identify users based in China.