US Gov't has blacklisted DJI among many other Chinese companies

[AbydosOne]

The US government has added DJI (among other companies) to its "Entity List" as of Friday, December 18.

 

From C|Net:

Quote

 

The US Commerce Department added drone maker DJI, which sells some of the best drones on the market, chipmaker SMIC and dozens of other Chinese companies to its Entity List on Friday.

Being added to the list restricts companies from exporting US technology without a license. Chinese telecom Huawei has been on the list since May 2019.
 

"Entity List restrictions are a necessary measure to ensure that China, through its national champion SMIC, is not able to leverage U.S. technologies to enable indigenous advanced technology levels to support its destabilizing military activities," Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in a statement.
 

It's unclear why DJI was added, but Drone DJ suggested it was a result of the company's reported work for the Chinese government.

 

From Ars Technica:

Quote

 

The Trump administration's other major target is SMIC, a Shanghai company that owns and operates semiconductor foundries. In the past, SMIC has counted Qualcomm, Broadcom, and Texas Instruments among its American customers.
When rumors began to circulate about an SMIC export ban a few months ago, Qualcomm reportedly began making plans to shift its semiconductor business away from SMIC. Qualcomm's biggest foundry partners are Samsung and TSMC, so it likely won't have too much trouble moving away from SMIC.
 

The US government's focus with the SMIC listing is to prevent the Chinese company from getting access to the newest generations of semiconductor fabrication technologies.
 

"Items uniquely required to produce semiconductors at advanced technology nodes—10 nanometers or below—will be subject to a presumption of denial," the US wrote in a statement announcing the restrictions. The US is concerned that selling cutting-edge semiconductor equipment to SMIC will allow it to fall into the hands of the Chinese military.

 

Thoughts: I don't know if I necessarily disagree with these actions, but I also am curious what technology from US sources aside from maybe video codecs and processor architectures DJI is using, both of which are being/can be home grown by China. There's some speculation that the ban stems from drones being use to monitor Uyghur camps (editing judgement applied there), but this is hardly what's needed to fix that issue.

 

Regarding process node tech: I think the danger is overblown, but the US is going to leverage whatever advantage it has while it still has it, I guess. I smell another cold war brewing...

 

Source; Source

[Silentprototipe]

3 minutes ago, AbydosOne said:

I smell another cold war brewing...

Cold War is returning for season 2? Sweet! Too bad Season 1's main villain the USSR is gone 

 

Genuinely tho this is gonna get bad really quick 

[AndreiArgeanu]

lmao, what next, the US is going to ban the whole of China, it just seems like a unjustified passive aggressive fight. There's literally no actual reason to ban these companies, not even Huawei, but hey, maybe things will change soon, or maybe they're right in their doings (which I highly doubt)

 

Also, just a reminder, please don't get politics involved in this conversation.

[Radium_Angel]

It's interesting that so much of our tech is made over there, and yet here we are, blacklisting them.

That's gonna backfire sooner or later...

[Taf the Ghost]

Chinese Intelligence has managed to piss off all of DC. 

1 hour ago, AndreiArgeanu said:

lmao, what next, the US is going to ban the whole of China, it just seems like a unjustified passive aggressive fight. There's literally no actual reason to ban these companies, not even Huawei, but hey, maybe things will change soon, or maybe they're right in their doings (which I highly doubt)

 

Also, just a reminder, please don't get politics involved in this conversation.

You made a political comment, own up to that, lol. China is a major technological competitor to the USA and also known to steal technology on a regular basis. The fact this hasn't happened sooner has more to do with Chinese money lining pockets everywhere.

 

Further, there's a reason why countries have domestic producers of certain technologies. It's always too easy to collect data otherwise. The fact DJI has lasted this long has kind of surprised me.

1 hour ago, Radium_Angel said:

It's interesting that so much of our tech is made over there, and yet here we are, blacklisting them.

That's gonna backfire sooner or later...

Nah, it can all be manufactured elsewhere. It previously wasn't made there, then it is now, and a lot of it is already in the process of leaving. Only reason certain things are made in China is it was a useful way of gaining power & money for Wall Street. Outsourcing almost never made economic sense for the countries doing it. Made great sense for the Banks because they made money on all of the Debt taken on.

[Radium_Angel]

3 minutes ago, Taf the Ghost said:

Nah, it can all be manufactured elsewhere

Agreed, but at what cost? You know as well as I do that it's made in China because it's cheap and the gov't looks the other way.

[WkdPaul]

* thread cleaned *

 

Avoid political comments, the ban is one thing, and it has no bearing with political parties, affiliations, and human rights issues, please keep the discussion about the ban itself and it's implications.

Edited December 18, 2020 by wkdpaul

[AndreiArgeanu]

19 minutes ago, Taf the Ghost said:

You made a political comment, own up to that, lol. China is a major technological competitor to the USA and also known to steal technology on a regular basis. The fact this hasn't happened sooner has more to do with Chinese money lining pockets everywhere.

That wasn't a political comment. The first part with 'banning the whole of china' was mostly a joke/exaggeration on my part. I haven't included any political correlations to china or the US, just the fact that this just seems like going back and forth. The reason to why I put the reminder there, isn't because my comment is political, it's because I see threads, similar with this one, where X country does/is involved something, and all of a sudden not too long after the thread gets locked, or there's a 'clean-up' or something similar.

[TetraSky]

So, it's unclear why DJI is on that list... But likely to be because they have some "ties" with the government... Like pretty much every company does, in any given country. 

 

Starting to wonder if the people in charge are simply picking random Chinese companies and playing dart with them to know which one to block next.

[Taf the Ghost]

3 minutes ago, TetraSky said:

So, it's unclear why DJI is on that list... But likely to be because they have some "ties" with the government... Like pretty much every company does, in any given country. 

 

Starting to wonder if the people in charge are simply picking random Chinese companies and playing dart with them to know which one to block next.

Drone usage by the US military. In-theater soldiers were already known to be buying drones for usage. Been going on for a while. The issue isn't the military usage. The issue is that Chinese Intelligence aren't morons, so DJI gets a call and told to do a few things. That would be the first reason to get involved. NSA would do the same thing if China was buying drones from a US company.

 

Considering how popular Drones have gotten, it's just too useful of an attack surface to not exploit, both for Military and just general information gathering. Also a great way to hide an attack vector where no one will really notice it. It's unfortunate, as DJI is really good at making drones, but this is the way the real world operates. China is going full-on Regional Hegemony, so everyone will react in kind.

[Taf the Ghost]

28 minutes ago, Radium_Angel said:

Agreed, but at what cost? You know as well as I do that it's made in China because it's cheap and the gov't looks the other way.

China isn't that cheap anymore. High-end manufacturing, amazingly enough, is pretty well cost-balanced globally. What was different was either preferential currency or tax polices. What normalizing tariffs has done for the USA is eliminate the benefit from being in China for most products, as the differential made up for the higher transaction costs you don't normally see with China. See, as much as they're the "Chinese Communist Party", it's still the Mandarin system, which means you better be paying your bribes properly.

 

Why a lot of production has been leaving to other areas of Asia. But that doesn't mean everything will leave. That isn't the way it works. New capacity will simply be produced in other locations. Doesn't mean there isn't a cost, but it's the Sword of Damocles issue, always, with this stuff. If one group can hold another "hostage" via some physical production, you either route around it, find something new or start a war. See Empire of Japan vs United States, circa 1939-1941.

[Donut417]

6 hours ago, AbydosOne said:

smell another cold war brewing...

Well we won the last one. LOL.

 

In all honestly I think we wont know what's going to happen till the end of January, when the new president takes over. All we can hope for is that someone with backbone as well as some one who is very diplomatic is able to bring China to the table. Keep in mind this shit all started over a trade dispute. In the end the US and China will need to talk about its trade deals. 

 

5 hours ago, Taf the Ghost said:

What normalizing tariffs has done for the USA is eliminate the benefit from being in China

Its not only that. China is starting to see labor disputes like the US had in the early 1900s, you know when UNION's started to form. This has causes issues with production. On top of the fact they have a aging population and I guess people over there live to a ripe old age. Which puts strain on the economy. Other countries in Asia like Vietnam for example are much cheaper to produce products in. Then add the issues we had during this pandemic and I think a lot of companies have seen that trusting one country for production is a bad idea. 

 

5 hours ago, Taf the Ghost said:

If one group can hold another "hostage" via some physical production, you either route around it, find something new or start a war. See Empire of Japan vs United States, circa 1939-1941.

I dont feel China will try to start a war with another Nuclear Armed nation. Also look at countries like Iran. Iran has been cut off from the world for the most part, with the exception of Russia doing a bit of trade with them. Iran developed its own industries. If a country like Iran can make it, then a much stronger nation like China can. China does have a lot of natural resources. Unlike Japan, which is why when we put that embargo on them they considered that an attack in a way, and in a way it was because the Chinese at that time were allies of the US, and we didnt like what Japan was doing.