(Dmytro “Henry” Aleksandrov, Headline USA) To avoid losing a 58% share of the domestic commercial drone market if the U.S. House passes Rep. Elise Stefanik’s, R–N.Y., Countering CCP Drones Act, China’s Da-Jiang Innovations Science & Technology Co. (DJI) decided to cooperate with a company in Texas as a way to avoid federal bans.
Anzu Robotics, a one-man Texas startup that coincidentally entered the market just a couple of months ago, started producing drones that are very similar to DJI’s products, with the Washington Free Beacon concluding that Anzu’s drones are nothing more than rebranded Chinese drones with an American packaging.
For a very long time, U.S. intelligence has been accusing DJI of making products that may spy on the United States by collecting and transmitting surveillance data back to the communists in China.
“[DJI is a] Chinese Military Company that is advancing technology that could one day be used against Americans,” Stefanik said while adding that her bill to ban the company is expected to pass the House this week as part of the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act.
FACT: DJI is controlled by the Chinese Communist Party.https://t.co/XM7CnLZ6zj
— Rep. Elise Stefanik (@RepStefanik) June 10, 2024
In early 2023, DJI approached Anzu’s founder, Randall Warnas, with an offer to Americanize its drones to bypass congressional scrutiny and make them more palatable for sale in the American market, the news source reported.
The company modified DJI’s software to ensure no data is sent to Chinese servers and instead goes to servers in Virginia, Warnas said, adding that he also contracted with a third-party penetration tester to ensure customer data stays in the United States.
Even though Warnas admitted there are still some unknown variables that remain in the software Anzu has licensed from DJI, he said that Stefanik and other politicians who are concerned about the Chinese Communist Party spying on us are just paranoid.
However, Stefanik isn’t buying it, saying that Anzu is a DJI “shell company” that the Chinese company is using in a “desperate attempt to evade their inclusion onto the FCC’s Covered List,” the politician told the Beacon.
“DJI and all its subsidiaries and affiliates have been put on notice. House Republicans will not allow a Communist Chinese Military Company unfettered access to spy on Americans,” she said.
