China's commerce ministry (MOFCOM), its customs administration and the equipment department of the Central Military Commission (the Communist Party body that commands China's armed forces) published MOFCOM Announcement No. 49 on 19 October1. From 18 November, Chinese exporters need Beijing's licence to sell drone autopilots, heavy-lift motors and swarm radios to a buyer in Warsaw, Kyiv or Bengaluru. In August only US-bound shipments needed one.
The list covers autopilots; low-speed brushless motors rated at 48 volts and 3 kilowatts or more (3,000 rpm or less, at least 3 kW per kilogram); the electronic speed controllers (ESCs) that drive them; long carbon-fibre propellers; and radios that let one ground station fly more than ten aircraft at once. Drones that fly beyond the pilot's sight for three hours or more, or for 30 minutes or more in 25-knot gusts, are listed, as are drones with a range of 300km or more and counter-drone technology. Drone turbojets of 400 newtons of thrust (about 40 kilograms of push) and above also need a licence2.
No. 49 names no destination, so it reaches a buyer in Europe or India as well as one in the United States. By those thresholds the motors caught are heavy-lift parts, the kind that lift long-range and interceptor drones; a racing quadcopter's motor sits well below them.
Beijing can still approve every application. Each one now crosses an official's desk with the buyer and end user named, and exporters with compliance systems can apply for general licences (one approval covering repeated shipments)3. Zhang Yi, founder of the research firm iiMedia, said smaller makers "with limited compliance resources may be forced out of high-performance markets overseas", Tech Times reported4.
