For China it's an existential threat. They cannot let US corporations have exclusive control over this. And they are unlikely to catch up. So by tossing open weights model (note: not open source) out there for the public to use, they are destroying the possibility that Dario and SamA can build a monopoly/duopoly.

I think we are now in the era of oligarchies, and oligarchies maintain power by being highwaymen and extracting tolls, in a kind of rentier capitalist structure.

By throwing LLM models out into the commons, China is disrupting the possibility of this taking hold there.

God bless 'em