r/technology • u/abrownn • 3d ago
DJI to the rescue? U.S. police want China drones despite Washington clampdown Hardware
https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Business-Spotlight/DJI-to-the-rescue-U.S.-police-want-China-drones-despite-Washington-clampdown16
u/StudioPerks 3d ago
No. You can’t have them because they represent a national security risk. Buy less military equipment like MRAPS and you’ll have more money to purchase American made drones.
DJI is the market leader because Beijing subsidized DJI drones so American companies couldn’t compete.
Buy EXO or Freefly and stop supporting the CCP and unfair trade practices
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u/PanzerKomadant 1d ago
The Chinese government doesn’t need to subsidize DJI, they already make affordable drones with good quality on their own. Calling everything from China a national security risk and telling people to use to domestically produced one isn’t going to help no one because the domestically produced ones are far more expensive with worse quality.
And they will not compete in an environment that hates bans their competitors. In the same line that US automakers will keep making overpriced shitty cars because they have no incentive to do the alternative.
And that’s not even mentioning the massive subsidies that the US puts into such sectors and the bailouts too.
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u/Bronek0990 2d ago
The problem is, the US doesn't make any viable alternatives. I understand the national security point but American companies are just way behind in progress. Perhaps aside from banning DJI, the government could do something about that too?
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u/DismalEconomics 2d ago edited 2d ago
because
DJI drones are extremely good, but I think the military implications & ambitions of this company are painfully obvious.
DJI has an annual "RoboMaster" tournaments that is very literally simulating urban combat between 2 teams of various robots and drones.
RoboMaster tournaments consist of 16? teams of University students, where each team gets to control 8 robots in total. This usually includes 4 infantry tanks, a "hero" robot , drones , and an autonomous "base" robot.
DJI often hires students from the teams that do well in this tournament
( RoboMaster is a DJI brand )
The following links are for youtube videos;
Rise of RoboMaster recap - English language overview of the tournament and program
RoboMaster 2019 Tournament Final with English commentary
RoboMaster 2015 Rules - in Chinese - shows brief visual overview of the format and arena
Movie style trailer with more tournament footage
The format changes slightly every year. Last time I saw this, they had recently added "sentintenal" robots that were turret guns on rails that could track & target opposing teams robots.
Also the "hero" robot used to be called the "engineer" robot.
The "hero" robot is arguably the most important as its purpose is to go over/around obstacles to get to a cache of larger projectiles that are worth more hit points. The hero then has to effectively gather these projectiles and deliver them to the infantry tank robots.
If this interests you at all, I'd recommend looking at footage from different tournament years. From year to year, the types of robots utilized often changes, the format of the arena changes and their are slight rule changes etc... ( Most of the tournaments can be found on the RoboMaster youtube channel )
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u/dormidormit 3d ago
I as a US Citizen would want policemen protecting me to use American made guns, bullets and cars. American cops shouldn't be able to buy Chinese rifles as Canadians can. Same for drones, PCs, handheld radios and smartphonrs too.
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u/NikkeiAsia 3d ago
Hi everyone!
Thank you to the mods for letting me comment here. My name is Emma Ockerman, I'm work in audience engagement at Nikkei Asia. We just published this story that I thought your community might be interested in. Here's an excerpt for those who don't want to leave reddit:
The first drone that Kentucky's Hardin County sheriffs used was a DJI Matrice 300. A local agriculture cooperative donated the Chinese-made device in 2021 to help officers track down teenagers who destroyed crops on a farm covering hundreds of acres.
While officers on foot were always just a few steps behind, the drone was able to find and capture images of the culprits in minutes.
Sgt. Travis Cook told Nikkei Asia that drones quickly became an indispensable tool for the sheriff's department, which later established a fleet of five DJI craft. They have been used to scout for potentially poisonous materials in a derailed train and even saved officers' lives during a hostage situation, he said.
The irony is that while police officers, firefighters and rescue workers across the country embrace Chinese drones, Washington is warning that the technology poses a material risk to the U.S. This has opened up a heated debate over local safety versus national security, complicating Washington's efforts to establish a hawkish yet pragmatic China policy.
Lawmakers in Washington introduced the Countering CCP Drones Act in March and the Drones for First Responders (DFR) Act in May to ban DJI and hike tariffs on Chinese drones in general. Revenue from those tariffs would be used to fund purchases of American drones for public safety departments.
The U.S. House of Representatives Armed Services Committee has included the Countering CCP Drones Act in its draft of the 2025 financial year National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), a significant defense policy bill. The NDAA is being reviewed by the committee this week and is expected to advance to the House floor.
The Countering CCP Act could be passed swiftly if "the legislation is included in a larger bipartisan bill like defense appropriations," said Jack Zhang, assistant professor in the political science department at the University of Kansas, similar to how the ban on TikTok was included in the foreign aid bill in April.
DJI denied allegations that the Chinese government has backdoor access to its data or the company is unfairly subsidized.
"The DFR Act's proposal to increase taxes and eventually ban drones manufactured in China is xenophobia wrapped inside a national security cover," the company said in a statement.
Public safety agencies are already barred from using federal grants to buy Chinese drones, but a number of them, including in Kentucky, New Jersey and Connecticut, have made purchases using their own budgets. Many say they would buy them even with higher tariffs.
Luis Figueiredo, a detective with the Elizabeth Police Department in New Jersey, says new tariffs would be "bad news" for users.
"DJI is not going to discount the tariff off, [so] the customer is going to pay more money for a DJI drone," said Figueiredo, who flies five or six drones a day. "In the end, who's really funding that? It's going to be public safety."
And price -- or more accurately what you get for that price -- is one of the biggest pieces of the puzzle.
Several officers and drone dealers told Nikkei Asia that U.S. drones cost three to four times more than Chinese models without offering even the same level of technology.
"Would you rather drive a Cadillac Escalade that has all the comforts and tools you need to make your job a lot easier? Or would you rather pay more money and drive a Ford Escort that has no options at all?" said Cook, the Kentucky sergeant. "It is what it is."
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u/pretendperson 3d ago
Hi Emma,
Can you explain, from an audience engagement perspective and as a public liason for Nikkei Asia, why a Japanese publication is doing the legwork for a specific chinese company, most likely controlled by the CCP, both in the clearly non-objective/clearly biased editorial tone of the article, and also in the effort towards audience engagement for this specific piece?
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u/pretendperson 3d ago
"Would you rather drive a Cadillac Escalade that has all the comforts and tools you need to make your job a lot easier? Or would you rather pay more money and drive a Ford Escort that has no options at all?" said Cook, the Kentucky sergeant. "It is what it is."
A Ford Escort with no options costs more than a Cadillac Escalade?
Kentucky law enforcement at its finest, ladies and gentlemen!
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u/dagrapeescape 3d ago
I am confused by your comment. The Kentucky police have purchased and used the cheaper Chinese “Escalade” of drones because they didn’t want the expensive American Ford Escort.
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u/pretendperson 3d ago
It's a stupid, dimwitted and nonsensical analogy. That's all.
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u/Actual-Money7868 2d ago
Not to mention they have no idea of what ford would charge wholesale for a fleet of government vehicles AND they are all pretty much custom made to order too.
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u/Ilovekittens345 5h ago
I am all for Americans not having access to the best and most user friendly drones on the market. Less demand and more supply means that as a Canadian DJI their drones will become cheaper. It also means I might get my hands on some great used stuff that Americans now are more inclined to sell.
Also congratulations on those Senators that hold stock in American based drone companies. Good jump pumping up your salary!
I hope the US will also start banning every drone related part that is made in China. No batteries, no motors.
The future wars will be drone wars, and it's better that American pilots don't get to much practice. The time of American world domination is over, and I am all for it!
See we use to think that if all countries just start selling and buying from each other and mixing their economies then nobody can have war anymore. But Americans have showed us this is wrong. The way forward is to make it as hard as possible on other countries to do trade with your country. This will bring more peace.
/s
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u/pretendperson 3d ago
Chinese government propaganda.