DJI, the Shenzhen-based Chinese dronemaker, has filed a lawsuit against the US Department of Defense (DOD), over what it claims to be false accusations and wrongful listing. The world’s largest dronemaker said that the US military body had wrongfully designated and blacklisted it as a “Chinese Military Company”, and has suffered unfairly because of such designation.
As a result, DJI says that its business has suffered, stating that it has lost business deals, been viewed as a national security threat, as well as banned from contracting with multiple US federal government agencies. In addition, many existing companies in the country and international customers have “terminated existing contracts with DJI and refuse to enter into new ones.”
The drone company is asking the presiding US District Judge in the state of Washington to order its removal from the Pentagon list, saying that it is “neither owned nor controlled by the Chinese military.” Not only that but the US Customs and Border Protection have also been stopping imports of the company’s drones into the US, citing the Uyghur Forced Labour Prevention Act.
DJI has said that no forced labour is involved in any stage of its manufacturing, although that hasn’t stopped US lawmakers from moving forward in scrutinising this company. On that note, the dronemaker is far from the only Chinese company it thinks has affiliations with the Chinese government. As many of you well know, Huawei is the other, more prominent Chinese brand that came under the spotlight back in 2019, when the then-Trump administration blacklisted the company and, on a consumer level, prevented it from using Google’s Mobile Services (GMS) on its smartphones.
(Source: Reuters, SCMP, The Verge)
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