Pentagon can call DJI a Chinese military company, court rules

Last October, aircraft maker DJI filed a lawsuit against the US Department of DefenseOn the pretext that he should not face the stigma of its inclusion as a “Chinese military company” and to continue to risk business as a result.

While the US District Judge Paul Friedman “cannot conclude that” DJI “is indirectly owned by the Chinese Communist Party”, it was found that DOD has a wide discretionary authority to define companies that do not belong to the list of Chinese military companies.

Friedman concluded that there is sufficient evidence that DJI is backed by the Chinese government to call it a “military melting contributor”, and that the entity sponsored by the state Chenghong has an “unlimited royal share” in the company. Being “a shareholder of military fusion” is sufficient to describe it as a Chinese military company as well, according to the rules (Section 1260H) of this appointment.

He also rejected a good number of other DOD claims due to insufficient evidence, and indicated that it had confused two different industrial development areas in China when trying to prove that the DJI factories were present in a special area sponsored by the state.

But the fact that the National Development and Reform Committee in China assigns DJI as the “National Center for Institution Technology”, which gives it large cash subsidies, “special financial support” and “a large number of tax benefits” was enough for this judge to agree that DOD could be called a Chinese military company if it wanted.

Although DJI argued that the Chinese weapons of Volkswagen and Nokia are not treated in the same way despite their “similar features”, Friedman says that the Ministry of Defense has “a wide discretionary authority to decide to put x on
The list, while it is also decided not to put Y in the list. “

But this is a decision that can resume DJI, and we asked the company if it would do so. You can read the full opinion of the judge, including an overview of different types of evidence provided by DOD and DJI below.