I mean paying for deepseek is sending money to China, and any company in China is pretty much an extension of the CCP (or can become one at the snap of their fingers). I don't think this is much better or worse than the American AI companies.
Have you seen the trade deficit lately?
A decade ago, just that kind of comparison would've been pretty unthinkable.
If someone says they're using Deepseek, it's probably a safe bet that they're sending money to China. People choose an inferior model (Deepseek) because it's cheaper. Not many people are willing to use Deepseek but also pay the 5x price to have an American company run it for them.