I don’t buy the excuse of DJI adhering to a principle that the responsibility is in the drone operator’s hands. Their motivation is almost certainly to cause disruption, aid in espionage, and do the bidding of the CCP. There have been so many instances of Chinese nationals “accidentally” flying drones near sensitive properties. Or accidentally approaching or encroaching on military property on foot or in a vehicle. And many properties adjacent to sensitive properties have been purchased by Chinese nationals or China-affiliated companies.
All of this is part of a continuous campaign of asymmetric warfare. We need to ban flight of DJI drones, disable them all through some means, or confiscate them all. Unfortunately that may only affect law abiding citizens and the ones looking to conduct espionage or disrupt operations will still just do whatever they want to do. But the bigger problem is that American politicians have been absolutely asleep at the wheel in managing China. They need to be FAR more aggressive with China, wage asymmetric warfare back, and even wage direct warfare by destroying key Chinese properties like ship building facilities, to reduce their ability to gain power.