Apparently open source models is an officially stated national strategy now, which is somewhat reassuring that we'll probably keep getting these for a while.
Until it's no longer officially stated strategy, and something else benefits the CCP. See rare earths policy. Changes constantly, to whatever maximizes their leverage.
The aspect that you can count on is that China sees AI as a long term strategic necessity, so they will support domestic players for an extremely long time. But unless you're a Chinese lab that shouldn't necessarily be a comfort to anyone else.
That's how nearly everything works. If people don't think action is in their best interest they don't act. And you can substitute any country for China - although if anythign the Chinese have been unusually competent compared to everyone else. the US has been adopting a foreign policy with a deliberateness of action that could be likened to someone having a seizure.
I expect the Chinese will do something wildly stupid at some point, but they've been behaving quite responsibly so far.
In his speech https://www.xinhuanet.com/politics/leaders/20260717/72728b6f... Xi Jinping mentioned "open source" (开源) exactly once in a list of buzzwords. Deriving from that an "officially stated national strategy" that ensures the free beer won't stop flowing is motivated reasoning. The most popular LLM chatbot in China is Bytedance's Doubao. Do you think this national strategy will involve forcing them to release their weights?
Another buzzword mentioned by Xi is "safety and controllability" (安全可控), which is generally in tension with open source, since that involves giving up control. Historically, when there's a conflict between openness and controllability, the Chinese government tends to choose control, see the Great Firewall.
The aspect that you can count on is that China sees AI as a long term strategic necessity, so they will support domestic players for an extremely long time. But unless you're a Chinese lab that shouldn't necessarily be a comfort to anyone else.