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...
Proactively offering their customers support due to the inconvenience, solid customer service move there.
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.
Who else you know?
Could you remember any case where US use sanctions without juridical case?
Huawei is neither sanctioned by wto nor Europe (till 2029) or any other part of the world
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.
Why is that China's fault? It's the American CEOs and financial consultants who are choosing to move jobs overseas, not Chinese people.
I recently read a comment on HN on why this is. The main point of that comment suggested that in a democracy, the government has to convince the public (voters) to hate something before they can justify the action. In China, they don't have do such thing obviously. Therefore, the level of propaganda is not nearly the same.
Are you sure about that? Every US history class I've ever taken growing up told me about some form of propaganda usage by the US government prior to some action. WWI, WWII, Cold War, Vietnam War, Iraq War etc.
But it's very important, even for the people "on the inside", to believe that they are fighting for the right cause, to be able to rationalize their actions. If you need something morally fraught to be done (like fight a war), the people doing it, regardless of who they work for on paper, are much more effective if they believe in their hearts that it's the right thing to do. Propaganda isn't really about convincing people do to things, it's about giving them the emotional toolkit to justify doing things with purpose and pride.
they have moved already, they're completely done moving. heck, by this point many are trying to move them back into the USA only to realize that it takes decaces to reach the level of quality we all want and even expect
In China, if you walk around the street in any city, you can see many American brands such as McDonalds, KFC, Starbucks, Microsoft, Apple. American logos are proudly displayed. If you walk into a cafe, you will more often than not, hear American music. Chinese cinemas will show Hollywood movies. They have statues of Kobe Bryant and when the NBA plays there, they get hundreds of thousands of fans. This is all in 2024, by the way.
Meanwhile, in America, everything Chinese will inevitably get the "China bad" treatment. Chinese companies doing business in America have to hide the fact that they're Chinese. Google "Is company..." and often the top autocomplete results includes something like "Is x company Chinese?".
The level of propaganda is not nearly the same on both sides.
Go to China and see for yourself. I just came back from Shenzhen. Absolutely stunning modern city that feels like it's 5 years ahead of anywhere I've been to. It's extremely safe for foreigners. Ridiculously safe actually. By my estimation, 80% of the cars on the road are EVs. Super clean air, cleaner than most American cities nowadays. You never hear about this stuff in western mainstream media.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-American_sentiment_in_m...
Apparently 60% responded that the killing of Bin Laden was a bad thing because he was an anti-american warrior.
I'm not arguing that. I'm arguing the type of negative view and the degree.
Meaning, there are people in China who are nationalistic, as there are in America. And these have enough of a Chinese over American view they would purchase an arguably worse product for their views.
As for cultural exports, I think America just dominates the world in that regard. If you want to use that as a comparison China would have to have equivalent cultural exports to be a fair point. And as far as I know most people have no qualms with eating Panda Express, PF Changs, or small Chinese takeouts, which is a Chinese cultural export.
>Super clean air, cleaner than most American cities nowadays.
I'm skeptical of that. I'd concede if you provided data but a quick Google search for AQI right now says the worst US city NYC is 54 AQI and Shenzhen is 56. Los Angeles is 33, SF is 19. (source IQAir)
Meaning, there are people in China who are nationalistic, as there are in America. And these have enough of a Chinese over American view they would purchase an arguably worse product for their views.
As for cultural exports, I think America just dominates the world in that regard. If you want to use that as a comparison China would have to have equivalent cultural exports to be a fair point. And as far as I know most people have no qualms with eating Panda Express, PF Changs, or small Chinese takeouts, which is a Chinese cultural export.
The cultural export power of America is precisely one of the main reasons why I sense that the level of anti-American sentiment in China is not nearly as bad as the anti-China sentiment in the US.
I'm skeptical of that. I'd concede if you provided data but a quick Google search for AQI right now says the worst US city NYC is 54 AQI and Shenzhen is 56. Los Angeles is 33, SF is 19. (source IQAir)
If we're basing our arguments on opinions then I'm not sure there's any value in this discussion for me.
I wonder if the parents of the Japanese boy stabbed on the way to school last month would agree?
In the West we have a general consensus that any encroachment on freedom in the name of safety isn’t worth the trade. People even go so far as to claim that those who would choose safety don’t deserve it, which I find completely uncalled for and unnecessarily strident. A lot of Asian countries (China, Japan, Singapore) have no such problem, and view the US as a generally unsafe country.
China is either the 2nd or 3rd largest trading partner of the US. A large amount of our finished consumer good come from there as well are raw industrial inputs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_largest_trading_pa... https://usafacts.org/articles/who-are-the-uss-top-trade-part...
Among my relatives I would say all are anti-US. About 5-6 of them vehemently so and want the war to start immediately.
I grew up in China and if you think there’s less propaganda in China compared to the US I don’t know what to tell you.
Basically they see anti-China sanctions as a continuation of foreign bullying.
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.
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.
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.
You could make the same argument of Soviet Russia and other despotic regimes (like today’s Russia). Does it provide any special insight? The majority of people are not involved in the power system of governments.
Having government be intimately intertwined the way China does makes the economy makes the playing field unfair. China basically locked out a lot of US companies from the market and forced a tech and knowledge transfer instead and the US leaders let that happen. The US is starting to finally try to adjust its markets to reflect that and it’s sticking with free markets for now (módulo stuff like TikTok).
Another issue for China domestically is that the entertaining or economy and politics means that there’s an even strong danger of corruption than even the US with all its problems.
When the US gives up on that role, the world is going to change drastically, and not for the better.
Nobody gave the US this legal power. It has no credibility there.
> everyone can trade with no fear of attacks on their shipping
Right now this is false around the area controlled by the Houthis.
> we don't steal each other's land any more
Israelis are stealing land with US support.
A few weeks ago, China announced sanctions on Skydio for selling drones to Taiwan, where our only customer today is the National Fire Agency.In particular this sentence demonstrates a näive credulousness.
Kissinger would be laughing.
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...
I'd expect a Tesla Gigamine then, somewhere near the recently discovered giant lithium deposit in Arkansas. Drones could use some of that, too.
>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.
Not a single one in the last 100 years
Taiwan (Republic of China) is an independent country and never was part of the PROC.
Here is a ChatGPT response to you because I wont bother with kneejerk responses:
In the last 100 years, the United States has been involved in several military invasions and interventions in various countries. Some notable examples include:
Mexico (1914) - U.S. forces occupied Veracruz.
Haiti (1915-1934) - U.S. Marines occupied Haiti to stabilize the country.
Dominican Republic (1916-1924) - U.S. intervention to restore order and protect American interests.
Korea (1950-1953) - U.S. involvement in the Korean War, supporting South Korea against North Korea.
Vietnam (1955-1975) - Extensive military involvement in the Vietnam War.
Grenada (1983) - U.S. invasion to overthrow the government and restore order.
Panama (1989) - Operation Just Cause to depose Manuel Noriega.
Iraq (2003) - Invasion to overthrow Saddam Hussein, followed by a prolonged military presence.
Afghanistan (2001-2021) - Response to the 9/11 attacks, targeting the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
This list highlights significant military actions but is not exhaustive, as the U.S. has also conducted numerous smaller operations, interventions, and covert actions in various countries over the years.
Please, show us the detailed metrics on this claim.