China went crazy for OpenClaw. Now it’s working to ban it

Beijing is sounding alarms about supply chain attacks, data access, and the risks of agentic AI inside government systems.

[Photo: Qin Zihang/VCG via Getty Images]

BY Chris Stokel-Walker

Earlier this week, social media was wowed by images from the streets of Chinese cities showing senior citizens lining up to have OpenClaw, the always-on AI assistant, installed on their laptops, desktops, and other devices. Areas like Shenzhen and Wuxi offered subsidies to try to scale up adoption of the tool and capitalize on its capabilities. An enormous proportion of all OpenClaw instances installed worldwide, as tracked by public dashboards, emanate from China.

But just as quickly as China adopted OpenClaw, it now appears to be shunning it. The country’s........

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