An internal directive in Shandong Province orders employees to report use of Anthropic’s coding assistant as Beijing expands restrictions on foreign AI.
A Chinese state-owned enterprise in eastern Shandong Province has ordered employees to report their use of Anthropic’s AI coding assistant, Claude Code, and replace it with domestic alternatives, reflecting Beijing’s expanding restrictions on foreign AI tools.
An internal notice posted to social media instructs departments to investigate whether employees are using Claude Code or other overseas AI programming assistants and submit the results by July 17. Employees found to be using the software are instructed to switch to Chinese-developed AI coding tools.
The directive suggests that China’s campaign against foreign AI is extending beyond private technology companies into the country’s vast state-owned enterprise system.
According to the notice, the order was issued after guidance from Shandong’s State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) and the state-owned Shandong Hi-Speed Group.
The notice alleges that Claude Code, developed by U.S.-based AI company Anthropic, contains a concealed detection mechanism that can identify users in China’s time zone or those accessing Claude Code through proxy servers and transmit those identifiers back to Anthropic’s servers.
Claude Code is an AI-powered software development tool that can analyze source code, read project files, execute terminal commands, and modify code directly.
Although Anthropic does not officially provide Claude Code services in China, some Chinese developers access the platform through overseas accounts, proxy servers, or third-party interfaces.
“These tools were already prohibited, but many companies were still quietly using them,” a Shandong-based journalist surnamed Liu told The Epoch Times. He spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisal.
“Cyber police discovered that some firms had installed Claude Code, so companies are now being required to investigate, remove the software if it’s installed, and report the results,” he said.
Liu said that the directive originated with provincial cyberspace and cyber police authorities before being passed to the provincial Shandong’s State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, Shandong Hi-Speed Group, and ultimately state-owned enterprises.
A Beijing-based software developer surnamed Chen said that Claude Code has become widely used among programmers because of its ability to generate code, edit software, and troubleshoot programming problems efficiently.
“But once it’s connected to an enterprise project, it may be able to access code repositories, configuration files, and API endpoints,” said Chen, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisal. “State-owned companies are now being ordered to investigate their use. Domestic [Chinese] alternatives may not yet match its capabilities or stability, which could increase labor costs. I think some companies will continue using it anyway.”
The directive follows recent reports about a monitoring feature built into certain versions of Claude Code.
