After TikTok, Another Chinese Company Faces Renewed Scrutiny In Congress
A bill taking aim at DJI has been in the works since 2022.
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Subscribe for free to get more stories like this directly to your inboxThe legislative effort to force Chinese-owned ByteDance to sell TikTok or face a U.S. ban on the social media app has attracted bipartisan support on Capitol Hill and received a signature from President Joe Biden. But it’s not the only company with ties to China that has been targeted by lawmakers.
What is DJI?
It might not be a household name like TikTok, but members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee are considering a bill that could similarly threaten DJI’s ability to sell its line of drones in the U.S. Like ByteDance, this company is being singled out specifically due to the fact that it is based in China.
Using the acronym for the Chinese Communist Party, the “Countering CCP Drones Act” seeks to include aircraft manufactured by DJI in a list of products and services that “pose a national security risk” and are prohibited from operating on American networks under a 2019 Federal Communications Commission law.
Chinese-owned tech companies Huawei and ZTE are among those already on the list.
A little background
The proposed legislation predates the latest effort to ban TikTok and was initially introduced in 2022 by U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY). She has maintained that DJI shares data concerning “critical infrastructure” from within the U.S. with the Chinese government.
“DJI presents an unacceptable national security risk, and it is past time that drones made by Communist China are removed from America.”
The company was on the U.S. government’s radar for years before the bill was drafted, having been the subject of action by the Departments of Commerce, Treasury, and Defense.
Like TikTok, however, DJI rejects the accusations against it, calling the latest bill “inaccurate and unsubstantiated” and declaring that its language has “amplified xenophobic narratives.”
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