Proactively offering their customers support due to the inconvenience, solid customer service move there.
China now confidently banning Skydio entirely and also blocking them from getting batteries probably means that China has concluded that it is impossible for the US to make batteries on their own. People will bring up the recent lithium discoveries in the US but has completely forgotten the amount propaganda that has been pushed against "open pit mining" targeting both the left and the right (Joe Rogan, RFK jr.)
https://dronelife.com/2024/09/10/house-passes-countering-ccp...
This is not atypical–however, the more you dig into the topic, the more shady they get. Worthwhile watch:
I feel like China is watching intently the ru-ua situation, and depending how it pans out with international support, Taiwan may find itself in hot water.
The way I would frame it if I were China: 1. Re-join PRC and lose some civil liberties, but hopefully not have any worse material quality of life. 2. Stay in the US sphere of influence, and continue to be the hypothetical "first theater" of WWIII. Taiwan would need to increase military readiness and always live with the threat of invasion looming.
“Supreme excellence consists of breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.” -- Sun Tzu
- The market wants cheap and durable high-quality cameras that can fly. Drone/flying-centric features are secondary.
- Software and "AI" features are important but they don't have moat and can be easily copied.
Skydio had more reliable person-tracking feature earlier than DJI but their camera quality has almost always been inferior to DJI.
The US does this because DJI is considered a Chinese Military Company [1] (nb that DJI disputes this and asked to be removed from the list). China is sanctioning Skydio because they sold some drones to Taiwan.
[1] https://media.defense.gov/2024/Jan/31/2003384819/-1/-1/0/126...
While you are right that the US has not fully passed and officially enforced a country-wide DJI ban, saying that the US is "just" banning DJI usage by the dept of defense, ignores a number of developments suggesting that the US is in the process of a more expansive ban.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-house-votes-bar-new-dron... [2] https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-customs-halting-some-dro...
That signal only has meaning if the Senate or administration takes it up. For example, before the great flip of segregation advocates, the house passed legislation making lynching a federal crime for nearly 50 years. The Senate never allowed it to leave committee for a vote.
The meaning of the signal is unclear without understanding the dynamics. The MAGA idiots control it, so there’s a lot of performative legislation to keep the crowd occupied.
A few weeks ago, China announced sanctions on Skydio for selling drones to Taiwan, where our only customer today is the National Fire Agency.People in China seem to be able to separate the emotions from the situation and able to understand the circumstance logically. Meanwhile, in the US, it's become more of a hate thing through nonstop anti-China propaganda.
I think manufacturing jobs moving to China hurt the middle class in the US, and that's caused a disdain for China (and US politicians who push for things like that). But otherwise, I don't think the China rhetoric is too out of touch with reality. It would be very interesting to talk to someone in China and directly compare perspectives.
China is different. Really different. Our old adversaries the Russians/Soviets are like brotherly chums compared to the Chinese.
China has always had a separate sphere of influence, distinct language, culture, religions, geography. It's way out there.
Look at all the conflicts the West has had with Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. Those were not merely economic wars. There was ideology involved at every step. Go back thousands of years, and see the Assyrians evangelizing China (not so effective or memorable.) See the Jesuits and other missionaries landing in Asia and making some inroads, then getting expelled, persecuted, martyred.
The big trouble is, with China, Americans have freely entangled ourselves economically with them for a long, long time. And this made for a tacit friendship, while we were fundamentally opposed in other aspects. But China patiently manufactured luxurious silk, delicious opium, cheap toys, and worthless crap to send us, and they Hoovered up all our debt, and our garbage and "recycling", and they bought controlling interests in businesses such as banks and whatnot.
But an economic relationship is not a friendship, it's transactional, and hopefully it's equalizing, and our economic agreements have been stable enough, but they're not strong enough to overcome ideologies.
So now you can see, perhaps, why Americans are scared and looking to extricate ourselves. I wouldn't say it's about "protectionism" because that has some negative or extreme connotations. I'd just say we're trying to be not so globalist, because the globalism eventually comes back to haunt us.
Nobody dislikes the Chinese people . But we also recognize that China has ambitions to expand its territory and we assume that the us government will oppose that.
In the US, it seems like any conversation about China is derailed into something unrelated that the party in China does, which is confounded by the inability to separate a private sector in China from the party. Its just not a 1-to-1 mapping to our system, alongside an unwillingness to see it any other way.
In reality, people in China are just trying to live their lives, and do. They know how to navigate the rules of their system and the day to day is fine.
In particular this sentence demonstrates a näive credulousness.
Kissinger would be laughing.
Please, show us the detailed metrics on this claim.
And in terms of the sanction itself, it’s definitely a reasonable response by China, given the fact that DJI is heavily sanctioned by the US government.
China's move however will be a killing blow to Skydio because China has most likely correctly calculated that US/Western anti-mining sentiments makes it impossible to manufacture batteries.
https://dronelife.com/2024/09/10/house-passes-countering-ccp...
...at the moment. The House has passed a bill that would ban the sale of most models of their drones. The bill is currently in committee in the Senate.
>A few weeks ago, China announced sanctions on Skydio for selling drones to Taiwan, where our only customer today is the National Fire Agency.
US has sanctioned for decades companies that cooperate economically with "enemy states" (Iran/Cuba/Russia/China), I don't see how China would be different.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extradition_case_of_Meng_Wanzh...
Invading and annexing isn't some weird thing no one usually does.
Taiwan is the product of a recent civil war.