If you think about it, the US labs are heavily subsidised too. Not only they receive billions in state funding, the administration is also prepared to engage in trade wars to help them.

I think the Chinese government is backing their labs by less direct means. For example cheap electricity and investing in chip manufacturers such as Huawei and cxmt.

Deepseek specifically, is known to operate with minimal resources. The entire company has around 160 employees and every model they release must break even within ten months.