DJI, the world’s largest drone company, is suing to avoid being seen as a tool of the Chinese government. On Friday, the company sued the U.S. Department of Defense to remove its name from the list of “Chinese military companies,” saying it has no such relationship with Chinese authorities and has been unfairly harmed as a result of that designation.
The company says that since DJI was added to that list in 2022, it has “lost business, been stigmatized as a national security threat, been barred from contracting with multiple federal agencies,” and has employees “currently… , are frequently victimized.” “Rampacious prejudice” and “repeated harassment and humiliation in public spaces.”
He also claims that the Pentagon did not provide the company with any explanation for its designation as a “Chinese military company” until DJI threatened to sue in September, and the Pentagon finally revealed why. At the time, he claims that the basis for this was riddled with errors.
The U.S. Department of Defense did not respond to a request for comment. The full statement that DJI is not owned or controlled by the Chinese military can be read in the complaint below.
Regardless of whether the Department of Defense has sufficient evidence to label DJI in this way, DJI is the only U.S. government agency likely to restrict and scrutinize the company over its possible ties to the Chinese government. Not just that. The U.S. Army asked its troops to stop using DJI drones as early as 2017. In 2019, the US Department of the Interior suspended its fleet of DJI drones due to the risk of espionage.
In 2020, the U.S. Department of Commerce added DJI to its Entity List, saying DJI had “enabled large-scale human rights violations within China through abusive genetic collection and analysis, or high-tech surveillance.” Technology exports to the country were prohibited.
In 2021, the U.S. Treasury added DJI to the list of non-SDN Chinese military-industrial complex companies, writing that it provided drones to the Chinese government to conduct surveillance on the Uyghur people, and found that DJI was complicit in serious human rights abuses. It was suggested that As a result.
As a result of these various measures, some U.S. government agencies have been restricted from purchasing new DJI drones. And last week, DJI reported that some of its drones were intercepted by U.S. Customs, citing the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act as a justification.
In its defense, DJI says it is not owned or controlled by the Chinese government, has “nothing to do with the treatment of the Uighur people in Xinjiang,” and that it is used for various publicly disclosed purposes. It has repeatedly claimed that it is only selling drones with potential. Many of their purposes support organizations in the United States, including first responders, and independent audits by consulting firms and U.S. government agencies, including the Department of Defense, said they found no security threats.
DJI acknowledges in its complaint that two Chinese state-owned investment funds have made minority investments in the company, but that the Shanghai Free Trade Zone Equity Fund owns “less than 1% of DJI’s stock. , less than 0.1% of the voting rights. ”, and the Cheng Tong Fund ended its investment in June 2023.
(According to DJI, only four people control 99 percent of DJI and own 87 percent of the company’s stock: Frank Wang, DJI’s founder and early employee; Henry Lu; (Mr. Swift Hsieh and Mr. Li Zexiang.)
Congress is currently considering a complete ban on new DJI drones and other equipment from the United States, saying they pose a natural security risk, but that ban is currently on hold. The House approved it as an addition to the mandatory National Defense Authorization Act, but the Senate bill does not currently include the ban (although it could be added again).
But until a seizure at U.S. Customs occurred, which DJI suggests was simply a misunderstanding, the U.S. government did not allow retailers to import drones, consumers to purchase drones, or private pilots to enter the U.S. No measures were taken to prevent the drone from flying. . Even if Congress bans the sale of new DJI drones, the proposed language of those bills suggests that existing owners could continue to fly their drones.
