Chinese drone maker SZ DJI Technology Co (大疆創新), which dominates the global consumer market, yesterday said it was suing the US Department of Defense (DOD), complaining that Washington had “erroneously” included the company on a Chinese military company blacklist.
It has faced scrutiny from Washington in the past few years, including for its alleged role in surveilling ethnic minorities in China, and DJI drones have reportedly been used extensively by both sides in the war in Ukraine.
On Friday, “DJI filed a lawsuit to challenge the Department of Defense’s erroneous designation of the company as a ‘Chinese Military Company,’” DJI said in a statement.
Photo: Reuters
The Pentagon added DJI to its list of Chinese military-linked companies in 2022.
It said at the time that it was seeking to “highlight and counter [China’s] Military-Civil Fusion strategy, which supports the modernization goals of the [Chinese] People’s Liberation Army.”
China did that by “ensuring its access to advanced technologies and expertise are acquired and developed by PRC [People’s Republic of China] companies, universities and research programs that appear to be civilian entities,” the Pentagon said at the time.
DJI yesterday said it had attempted to “engage with the DOD for more than sixteen months” and had now “determined it had no alternative other than to seek relief in federal court.”
“DJI is not owned or controlled by the Chinese military, and the DOD itself acknowledges that DJI makes consumer and commercial drones, not military drones,” the company said. “DJI is a private company and should not be misclassified as a military company.”
Founded in 2006, DJI is the world’s biggest maker of consumer drones and also accounts for a large global share of higher-end uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs), which have been praised for rapid innovations that have helped push the worldwide explosion in drone use in everything from aerial photography to filmmaking, crop-dusting, search-and-rescue operations and public safety applications.
In 2022, the Ukrainian government accused DJI of helping Russia with its AeroScope system, which Kyiv says Moscow uses to guide its missiles.
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