I had similar experiences in asking it about the role of conservative philosopher (Huntington) and a very far right legal theorist (Carl Schmitt) in current Chinese political thinking. It was fairly honest about it. It even went so far to point out the CCP's use of external threats to drum up domestic support.

This was done via the DeepSeek app.

I heard on an interview today that Chinese models just need to pass a battery of questions and answers. It does sound a bit like a bolt-on approach.