Shanghai (AFP) - Chinese drone maker DJI, which dominates the global consumer market, said Saturday it was suing the US Department of Defense, complaining that Washington had “erroneously” included the company on a Chinese military company blacklist.

It has faced scrutiny from Washington in recent years, including for its alleged role in surveilling ethnic minorities in China, and DJI drones have reportedly been used extensively by both sides in the war in Ukraine.

“On October 18, DJI filed a lawsuit to challenge the Department of Defense’s (DoD) erroneous designation of the company as a ‘Chinese Military Company’,” DJI said in a statement sent to AFP.

The Pentagon added DJI to its list of Chinese military-linked companies in 2022.

It said at the time that it was seeking to “highlight and counter (China’s) Military-Civil Fusion strategy, which supports the modernization goals of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA)”.

China did that by “ensuring its access to advanced technologies and expertise are acquired and developed by PRC (People’s Republic of China) companies, universities, and research programs that appear to be civilian entities”, the Pentagon said then.

DJI said Saturday it had attempted to “engage with the DoD for more than sixteen months” and had now “determined it had no alternative other than to seek relief in federal court.”

“DJI is not owned or controlled by the Chinese military, and the DoD itself acknowledges that DJI makes consumer and commercial drones, not military drones,” the company said.

“DJI is a private company and should not be misclassified as a military company.”

- Tech fears -

Washington has for years rolled out measures targeting Chinese tech companies over national security concerns and fears that technology could be used by Beijing for military purposes.

The US Commerce Department last month moved to ban the sale of vehicles able to connect to other devices or the internet that incorporate Chinese technology, citing national security risks.

Meanwhile, export restrictions on chip-making equipment are intended to prevent China from acquiring sensitive inputs that could be used in cutting-edge weapons and tech such as AI.

Founded in 2006, DJI is the world’s biggest maker of consumer drones and also accounts for a large global share of higher-end unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

Its UAVs have been praised globally for rapid innovations that have helped push the worldwide explosion in drone use in everything from aerial photography to filmmaking, crop-dusting, search-and-rescue operations, and public safety applications.

In 2022, the Ukrainian government accused DJI of helping Russia with its AeroScope system, which Kyiv says Moscow uses to guide its missiles.

The company strongly denied it has allowed Russia to use its products for military purposes.

In April 2022, DJI said it was temporarily suspending business in both Russia and Ukraine while it “internally reassess(ed) compliance requirements”.

DJI was previously blacklisted by the US Department of the Treasury in 2021 for allegedly supporting the surveillance of the Uyghur minority in China’s Xinjiang region.