Shenzhen-based agency is amongst 13 Chinese language corporations added to record that clears method for sanctions.
The US Protection Division (DoD) has added greater than a dozen Chinese language corporations, together with the world’s largest drone producer, to a blacklist of corporations with alleged ties to the Chinese language army, clearing the way in which for restrictions on their enterprise.
Shenzhen-based DJI Know-how, which is estimated to regulate greater than half of the worldwide marketplace for business drones, is among the many 13 corporations added to the blacklist launched by the Pentagon on Wednesday.
The blacklist grants the US president authority to impose sanctions towards corporations deemed to have connections to the Chinese language army.
The announcement comes after the US Treasury Division final yr banned US-based individuals from buying and selling shares of DJI and 7 different Chinese language corporations over their alleged involvement within the surveillance of ethnic minority Uighurs in China’s far-western area of Xinjiang.
BGI Genomics Co., a genetic testing firm; CRRC Corp., which manufactures rolling inventory; and Zhejiang Dahua Know-how, a Hangzhou-based surveillance gear maker, had been additionally included on the up to date record.
The blacklist contains greater than 60 Chinese language corporations, together with tech big Huawei Know-how and semiconductor maker SMIC.
“The Division is set to focus on and counter the Folks’s Republic of China’s Army-Civil Fusion technique, which helps the modernization targets of the Folks’s Liberation Military by guaranteeing its entry to superior applied sciences and experience are acquired and developed by PRC corporations, universities, and analysis applications that seem like civilian entities,” the Pentagon mentioned in an announcement.
Charles Rollet, an analyst on the Pennsylvania-based surveillance analysis group IPVM, mentioned the transfer towards DJI was a warning to buyers to avoid the corporate.
“DJI had already been added by the US Treasury to the Non-SDN Chinese language Army-Industrial Complicated Firms record in December 2021, barring US funding into the agency. So the DoD itemizing confirms the US authorities firmly considers DJI to be a contributor to the Folks’s Republic of China (PCR) army,” Rollet advised Al Jazeera.
“Notice that DJI has obtained funding from a PRC state-owned fund, China Chengtong, which overtly touts Army-Civil Fusion as a core purpose.”
DJI spokesman Adam Lisberg mentioned the agency stood alone as the one drone maker to discourage the army use of its merchandise and opposed its inclusion on the blacklist.
“There isn’t a purpose why DJI has been added to the Protection Division’s record of ‘Chinese language army corporations,’” Lisberg advised Al Jazeera.
“DJI doesn’t fall below any classes set by the regulation to be included on the record. DJI shouldn’t be a army firm in China, the US or wherever else. DJI has by no means designed or manufactured military-grade gear, and has by no means marketed or bought its merchandise for army use in any nation. As an alternative, now we have at all times developed merchandise to learn society and save lives. We stand able to formally problem our inclusion on the record.”
Al Jazeera contacted Dahua, BGI and CRRC for remark.
US President Joe Biden has pushed to isolate Chinese language corporations with alleged army ties as a part of a sweeping effort to counter Beijing in areas starting from protection to expertise and commerce.
China has described US sanctions towards Chinese language corporations as “typical political manipulation” and warned scientific and technological developments shouldn’t be used as instruments to limit the event of different nations.