Chinese Drone Giant Blacklisted – What’s the Effect on the Drone Market?
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The Chinese drone manufacturer DJI, one of the largest and most popular drone companies in the world — has been added to the US Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) at the Department of Commerce ‘Entity List’, identifying the company as a national security concern and banning US-based companies from exporting technology to the company.
According to industry estimates, DJI makes somewhere between 70-80% of the world’s commercial drones, and over three-quarters of those sold in the US. It is estimated that this year, consumers in the US bought some 7m of the company’s drones.
DJI is one of four companies accused of enabling wide-scale human rights abuses within China through abusive genetic collection and analysis or high-technology surveillance, and/or facilitated the export of items by China that aid repressive regimes around the world, contrary to U.S. foreign policy interests, according to uasvision.com.
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in a statement the department would “not allow advanced U.S. technology to help build the military of an increasingly belligerent adversary.”
This is likely a reference to DJI’s reported involvement in providing drones to the Chinese government to surveill detention camps in the Xinjiang province.
The Financial Times evaluated that the move will make it far harder for the company to secure American supplies, and threatens to scramble the global market for camera drones, which the Chinese manufacturer dominates.
“DJI is disappointed in the U.S. Department of Commerce’s decision,” a representative of the company said in a statement. “Customers in America can continue to buy and use DJI products normally.”
