{"id":1291,"date":"2025-09-26T21:29:15","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T17:29:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/pentagon-can-call-dji-a-chinese-military-company-court-rules\/"},"modified":"2025-09-26T21:29:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T17:29:15","slug":"pentagon-can-call-dji-a-chinese-military-company-court-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/pentagon-can-call-dji-a-chinese-military-company-court-rules\/","title":{"rendered":"Pentagon can call DJI a Chinese Military Company, court rules"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Last October, dronemaker DJI sued the US Department of Defense<\/a>, arguing it should no longer face the stigma of being listed as a \u201cChinese Military Company\u201d and continue to risk business as a result. <\/p>\n

It just lost. <\/p>\n

While US District Court judge Paul Friedman \u201ccannot conclude\u201d that DJI is \u201cindirectly owned by the Chinese Communist Party,\u201d he found that that DoD has broad discretion to decide which companies do and do not belong on the list of Chinese military companies.<\/p>\n

Friedman concluded there was enough evidence that DJI is supported and recognized by the Chinese government to call it a \u201ca military-civil fusion contributor,\u201d and that state-sponsored entity Chengtong has \u201csome unspecified ownership stake\u201d in the company. Just being a \u201cmilitary-civil fusion contributor\u201d is enough to label it a Chinese Military Company as well, according to the rules (section 1260H) for that designation. <\/p>\n

He also rejected quite a few of the DoD\u2019s other claims for insufficient evidence, and pointed out that it confused two of China\u2019s different industrial development zones when trying to prove DJI\u2019s factories were located in a special state-sponsored zone. <\/p>\n

But the fact that China\u2019s National Development and Reform Commission designates DJI as a \u201cNational Enterprise Technology Center,\u201d which gives it large cash subsidies, \u201cspecial financial support\u201d and \u201ca large number of tax benefits\u201d was enough for this judge to agree that the DoD can call it a Chinese Military Company if it wants. <\/p>\n

And though DJI argued that the Chinese arms of Volkswagen and Nokia aren\u2019t being treated the same way despite their \u201csimilar attributes,\u201d Friedman says the DoD has \u201cbroad discretion to decide to place X on
the list, while also deciding not to place Y on the list.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is just the latest blow against DJI in the United States, where it faces a total import ban on new products this December<\/a>, and where US customs has already stopped blocking many consumer drone shipments, to the point that shelves have gone bare<\/a>, scammers are setting up shop<\/a>, loopholes may be getting exploited<\/a>, and DJI doesn\u2019t bother launching new drones here at all<\/a>. <\/p>\n

But it is a decision that DJI could possibly appeal, and we\u2019ve asked the company if it will. You can read the judge\u2019s full opinion, including his overview of various kinds of evidence presented by the DoD and DJI, below.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last October, dronemaker DJI sued the US Department of Defense, arguing it should no longer face the stigma of being […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-classe"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1291\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}