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Yeset among green hills and tall pines, Lori Brock’s storybook farm encapsulates northern Michigan. A five-day-old mare runs around a corral, while small black pigs wander through a barn and donkeys graze in fields bordered by white fences.
It’s a bucolic way of life in Green Township, but one that Brock and many of his neighbors believe could be threatened by an unlikely adversary: the Chinese Communist Party.
Just south of his property, a company called Gotion is moving forward with a massive $2.4 billion, 2 million square foot (186,000 square meter) plant that would produce lithium batteries for electric vehicles (EV). It is a company based in the United States but its parent company is Chinese.
Brock and his neighbors say they are fighting to preserve Green Township’s rural character and avoid the “national security risk” of a Chinese company. They insist they are about to derail the project.
Across the United States, anti-China sentiment threatens to disrupt the transition to electric vehicles. That transition is funded in part by President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, but many of its projects, which also aim to revive struggling rural economies, are in Republican districts and have Chinese financing, which some residents object.
In this context, Green Township – with a population of 3,200 – forms only one part of the broader economic conflict between the United States and China. While some analysts are convinced that Beijing is winning the race to store clean energy, the United States finds itself in the difficult position of needing to adopt Chinese technology. On Tuesday, Biden announced a 100% tariff on electric vehicles made in China as part of a package of measures designed to protect American manufacturers from cheap imports.
The stakes are high in Michigan, which is trying to preserve its position as the world’s automotive capital in the era of electric vehicles. The state’s Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer, and legislative leaders, including many Republicans, marshalled billions of dollars in tax incentives to ensure companies invest there. Gotion itself is expected to receive about $715 million in state incentives.
‘They messed with the wrong rednecks’
Gotion’s plans came to light in late 2022, sparking a bitter fight that has continued ever since, with alleged death threats, reports of sabotage, vandalized mailboxes, and the removal of local officials who supported the project. .
Jim Chapman, the township supervisor who supports Gotion’s plans, has spoke publicly about the threats He got. He said they involved references to the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms and threats to send in the “Michigan militia,” a possible reference to the self-styled anti-government militia.
Chapman, a former police officer, said he began attending town meetings armed and wearing a bulletproof vest.
Others who are against the megafactory say they too have received death threats, but people on both sides are reluctant to reveal details.
Gotion supporters dismiss fears of communist influence as implausible and believe opposition to the plans was fueled by outside political forces, aligned with Donald Trump, who do not want Governor Whitmer to “win a victory.” In June of last year, Trump told a rally in the state that the push for electric vehicles is “killing Michigan and it’s a total vote for China.” Mecosta County, where Green Township is located, has the fifth-highest poverty rate in the state, and supporters of the plan see Gotion as an economic boon.
Opponents of the project, who established the Mecosta Environmental and Safety Alliance (MESA), call themselves “No-Gos” and question why the next generation of electric vehicle projects are not being built in the region’s cities. .
“We don’t want chimneys here,” Brock says. MESA believes that industry and government officials perceive rural communities as financially “weak” and filled with a “bunch of rednecks interested only in raising horses.” Another resident, Ormand Hook, says: “They picked on the wrong rednecks.”
‘I’ve been waiting a long time for an opportunity like Gotion’
Just south of Green Township is Big Rapids. At her candy and gift shop, Carlleen Rose sees empty windows and young people leaving for lack of good jobs. The 2,300 positions that Gotion says would pay an average of $24 an hour could be a desperately needed economic antidote.
“We’ve been waiting a long time for an opportunity like Gotion to come along,” Rose says. “The sheer number of people who would work at this company is incredible.” The usual joke, she adds mockingly, is that the Chinese will send communists to spy on their candy recipes.
MESA, on the other hand, scoffs at the idea that China is not a threat. The joke about the fudge recipe “foams of ignorance,” says Bruce Baker, an accountant and MESA spokesperson.
Reflecting on the division the plans have created, Rose says: “What has happened to this community makes me very sad.”
A question of priorities
Founded in China in 2006, Gotion established its US subsidiary in California in 2014, and its US board is made up of equal parts Germans, Americans and Chinese. The parent company’s charter requires it to “carry out party activities in accordance with the constitution of the Communist Party of China.” Gotion already has operations in California and Ohio, and has told residents that its North American operation will have nothing to do with communism.
Gotion’s U.S. subsidiary did not respond to a request for comment for this story, but Chuck Thelen, vice president of Gotion’s North American operations, has engaged with local communities by holding a series of virtual town hall meetings. He he told one in April of last year: “Despite what current politicians may say, there is no communist plot within Gotion to make Big Rapids a center for spreading communism.”
What is clear is that the company is rapidly expanding its presence abroad. In 2023, its revenue outside China increased 116% to 6.4 billion yuan ($884 million), thanks in part to its partnership with Western brands such as Volkswagen.
Michael Dunne, founder of Dunne Insights, an electric vehicle consultancy, says Gotion is a “very impressive” and “genuinely privately owned company” that wants to grow by expanding internationally, away from the multitudinous competition from China, dominated by the giants of the batteries. such as BYD and CATL.
“At the same time, they would not have reached their size without some level of government support… At any given time, the risk is that the (Chinese Communist) Party will have a new leadership and say we are not operating. in the U.S. Whatever the ownership of the company, it comes in a distant second,” says Dunne.
Although he did not comment specifically on Gotion, FBI Director Christopher Wray said during the February congressional meeting. audiences on China’s cybersecurity that such projects “may still raise national security concerns because they provide a vehicle for (China), if it wants to take advantage of that access, to conduct surveillance or other operations that undermine our national security.”
Tim Hahn, a Republican who backs the project for its economic benefits, dismisses such fears as an “element of petty, local bigotry and xenophobia.”
“You don’t really need to have a well-constructed argument to convince people that it’s bad for China to do business near you; just go out and shout ‘China, China, China, CCP,’” she says.
As the battle between local residents has developed, each side has accused the other of criminal acts. Brock says he has received death threats and claims to have found motor oil in a waterer for his animals.
“I hope no one holds a grudge”
Opponents of the plan say accusations of outside influence by Trump-aligned political forces are false and point to the successful ouster in November of last year of five of the seven Green Township board members who backed the project as evidence. of broad support. The new board, which now has a majority opposed to Gotion’s plans, immediately voted to symbolically rescind support for the project in November last year, even though the municipality had already signed a development agreement.
The agreement is invalid, the new board claims, claiming it was signed behind closed doors and violates the Open Meetings Law. Gotion disagrees, is already clearing trees from the site, and filed a federal lawsuit in early April alleging that Green Township violated the agreement by wrongfully derailing a project in which Gotion had already invested millions of dollars.
Despite the personal nature of the attacks that the dispute has created, Rose is optimistic that the wounds will heal once the Battle of Gotion is resolved.
“I just hope that in a few years, when this is all over, we can get back together and see what else we can fight for,” he joked. “Seriously, I hope no one holds a grudge even though it’s been so hard and disappointing.”