A U.S. electric vehicle battery manufacturer with ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has suspended its permit application to build a plant near a Michigan National Guard base following fierce opposition.
Chuck Thelen, CEO of Gotion Inc. — a “wholly owned and controlled” subsidiary of Chinese company Hefei Gotion High-Tech Power Energy Co. Ltd. (Gotion High-Tech) — said the decision stemmed from the firm’s ongoing breach of contract lawsuit against Green Charter Township, according to the Big Rapids Pioneer. The township soured on the $2.4 billion project in November 2023 after voters recalled numerous officials following a series of reports revealing Gotion and its Chinese parent company’s ties to the CCP.
“I applaud the people of Mecosta County as Gotion pauses their permitting process, but their fight is not over,” Republican Michigan Rep. John Moolenaar, chair of the House Select Committee on the CCP, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Gotion must announce it will finally listen to the people, and end its projects for good.”
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Questions about Gotion’s CCP-ties began to arise around March 2023 when The Midwesterner reported Gotion High-Tech’s “Articles of Association” required the firm to establish a “Party organization and carry out Party activities in accordance with the Constitution of the Communist Party of China.”
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The House Select Committee on the CCP investigated Gotion High-Tech in 2024 and “found their supply chains are reliant on forced labor as part of the CCP’s ongoing genocide of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang Province,” Mooleenaar told the DCNF.
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Meanwhile, Michigan residents — like Joseph Cella, the director of the Michigan-China Economic and Security Review Group — engaged in grassroots activism to oppose the CCP-tied company. Cella served as the U.S. Ambassador to Fiji during the first Trump administration.
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“[They] refused to follow the directives given to state and local governments on dealings with China-based companies to exercise vigilance, conduct due diligence, and ensure transparency, integrity, and accountability are built into the partnership to guard against potential foreign government exploitation,” Cella said. “It is important that executive branch agencies, Congress, the Michigan Legislature, and citizens continue to scrutinize and investigate this ‘deal.’”
[…]
The House Select Committee on the CCP investigated Gotion High-Tech in 2024 and “found their supply chains are reliant on forced labor as part of the CCP’s ongoing genocide of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang Province,” Mooleenaar told the DCNF.
Reminder that the US has more people in its prison system than China, despite having a much smaller population.
It’s amazing to me that people in this day and age still buy into this kind of McCarthyist nonsense. Imagine thinking that a party tasked with governing a nation of 1.4 billion people would be at all concerned about taking over a small town in the middle of nowhere to spy on the… Michigan National Guard? LOL
what a load of shit
Imperial media going hard in the paint for the
Saddam Hussein WMDsUyghur genocide story that the UN has already debunked. You know your country is doing well when it’s disappearing protestors off the street while desperately accusing other countries of doing what they themselves are doing to Palestine in full view of the world.Pretty soon just believing in the germ theory of medicine will be evidence of communism in this rapidly medieval-ifying shithole
Lol
Succesfuly defended citizens agaisnt employment
Anti-CCP rhetoric from white rural conservatives is just patent racism washed with a political guise. Every business in China has “ties to the CCP.” That’s how it works over there
So much for autarky lmao
This is not anti-CCP rhetoric, the CCP’s influence on private businesses is a simple fact that isn’t even denied by the CCP.
For example, the party’s infiltration of the private sector gained momentum already after then-president Jiang Zemin called in the early 2000s for the CCP to represent “the advanced productive force” and welcome China’s emerging private entrepreneurs.
Since Xi Jinping came to power in 2014, the CCP’s influence on private businesses have intensified (with the disappearance of entrepreneur Jack Ma after he criticized the CCP supposedly being the most prominent case).
You’ll find ample evidence for the the systematic ways in which the Chinese party-state has been interfering in the private sector. So called “CCP branches” within private firms -meant as a potential lever of control, alongside regulatory tools - are a key of that effort. In recent years, the number of these “party units” has increased dramatically, and the CCP branches have strengthened their role in private companies’ management.
You’ll find ample evidence for the the systematic ways in which the Chinese party-state has been interfering in the private sector.
Good, they should do much more of that.
Starting with the public executions of their own billionaires, the redistribution of all company ownership to the workers in the companies, and mandatory membership and democratization of representatives in the ACFTU
This is absolutely nationalist rhetoric from a conservative paper. Not only that, but the title is absolute nonsense. The CCP didn’t almost take over a town, and anyone who thinks they did is an idiot.
Oh, don’t get me wrong, they would love to control American towns, but they do not, nor have they come close to. You should be ashamed for even posting this tripe.
The propaganda on China is elsewhere. It seems unbiased information is not for you.
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/independent-journal-review/
The source you posted is not unbiased.
What is a good source for China-related content?
Do you mean sources that are unbiased and focused on Asia, or unbiased sources that also cover Asia?
If you mean the former, then Asia Times is ranked as Least Biased, but there are some issues with stories being censored by the Chinese government since they are based in Hong Kong. Anything that embarrasses the CCP is not likely to show up here.
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/asia-times/
For the latter, there’s always Reuters, which is one of my favorites. They don’t focus specifically on Asia, so you’re going to miss out on some smaller regional news, but they are unbiased and highly factual in their reporting.
These ‘rating’ sites may give you a hint, but we shouldn’t solely rely on them.
What is a reliable source in your view?
You’ll find ample evidence for the the systematic ways in which the Chinese party-state has been interfering in the private sector.
The only systematic interference I see in this article is big (small-town) government chasing away honest job creators purely on the basis of their radical anti-business ideology.
