Two companies affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party have deals to build battery plants for electric vehicles in Michigan, a battleground state in Tuesday’s presidential election.
The objective of Chinese communists, some political leaders say, is to shatter the U.S. automobile industry.
“Make no mistake, China is seeking to undermine our nation’s economic and national security,” Mike Rogers, the Republican candidate in Michigan’s race for U.S. Senate, said in September in a written statement to The Daily Signal.
Peter Hoekstra, chairman of the Michigan Republican Party, said he thinks the future battery plants and China’s threat to the U.S. automobile industry are a compelling issue for the state’s voters.
“They recognize that if we lose the automobile industry to China—which we are doing—it’s going to significantly harm the economy in the state of Michigan,” Hoekstra said in a Sept. 18 telephone interview with The Daily Signal.
Gotion Inc., which plans Michigan’s northernmost battery component plant in Big Rapids, is a U.S. subsidiary of Gotion High-Tech Co. Ltd., the Chinese manufacturer of batteries for electric vehicles.
In February 2023, Ford Motor Co. announced a partnership with another Chinese EV battery manufacturer, Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd., to build BlueOval Battery Park in Marshall as its southernmost EV battery plant in Michigan.
Construction has yet to begin on Gotion’s plant in Big Rapids. BlueOval Battery Park is still under construction and scheduled to begin operating in August 2026.
The battleground state’s major party candidates for Senate—Rogers, a former GOP congressman, and Rep. Elissa Slotkin, a Democrat—are vying for the seat of Sen. Debbie Stabenow, a Democrat who is retiring in January after four terms and 24 years.
Slotkin was running almost three percentage points ahead of Rogers in the latest RealClearPolitics average of polls, 48.4% to 45.5%. In the presidential race in Michigan, Vice President Kamala Harris was leading former President Donald Trump by little more than a point, 48.8% to 47.6%, according to the latest RCP average of polls.
Both Rogers and Slotkin have focused heavily on the battery plant deals in Michigan.
Slotkin didn’t respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment.
What is happening with batteries in the auto industry is typical of how China goes into other countries, the GOP’s Hoekstra said. The Chinese target industries there, subsidize them so production and manufacturing of a product is undercut in America, then jack up prices once the technology has left the country for China.
“This is the Chinese now targeting one of the biggest industries in America: the automobile industry,” Hoekstra told The Daily Signal.
China built up its own automotive industry and now wants to drive a stake through the heart of the U.S. auto industry, he said.
“The Chinese think long term. This is a 10-, 15-, 20-year plan to make sure that in 10 or 15 years, if you want to buy a car, you’re going to have to buy Chinese-manufactured vehicles,” Hoekstra said.
Hoekstra said he thinks the two battery plants will significantly affect Tuesday’s election because Michigan voters are concerned about the state government’s investment of billions of dollars in the plants through direct incentives and infrastructure investments.
Ford didn’t respond to a request for comment about its BlueOval Battery Park, nor did China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd., or CATL.
The office of Michigan Democratic Chairwoman Lavora Barnes acknowledged but didn’t follow up on a request for comment from The Daily Signal.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat who won reelection in 2022, gave $210 million in taxpayers’ money to the plant operated at BlueOval Battery Park by Ford and CATL, the Chinese manufacturer, as well as tax abatements and other handouts, according to the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.
Gotion Inc.’s project has a price tag of $715 million in grants and tax breaks, according to Joseph Cella, an ambassador to Fiji and other Pacific islands during the Trump administration.
“The tax breaks crush the local community,” said Cella, co-founder with Hoekstra of the Michigan China Economic and Security Review Group.
Glenn Kowlaske, a 37-year resident of Marshall Township and retired engineering manager, recently was elected as the township’s treasurer.
Kowlaske and other challengers defeated the township’s previous leaders, who they said weren’t transparent about the Ford-CATL deal with the township of 3,000 and Marshall, a city of 7,000.
“For Marshall residents, there’s a variety of concerns,” Kowlaske said. “A lot of it starts with the way the state overran, in our case, Marshall Township and the city of Marshall, to build what will ultimately be a 3,000-acre megasite [for Ford/CATL].”
Just as residents of Marshall Township voted out board members over lack of transparency about the Ford-CATL deal, residents of Michigan’s Green Charter Township voted out all five board members for supporting the deal for the Gotion battery plant.
The Chinese Communist Party bribed officials in Green Charter Township to approve an initial development agreement for Gotion, Cella testified Sept. 24 before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee.
However, rather than conduct the deal with transparency, integrity, and accountability, government and business elites did exactly the opposite with the Green Charter project, Cella said.
“They moved fast and in secret, binding them and shrouding them in five- and 10-year nondisclosure agreements using secret code names,” Cella said. “This ruptures the consent of the governed and certainly jeopardizes our national security.”
Gotion Inc. Vice President Chuck Thelen said he couldn’t comment on the battery parts plant in Green Charter.
But Tracy Ruell, a Democrat running for Michigan state representative, said in September that she supports the project because of the jobs it will bring to Big Rapids.
“These are the people who are working their butts off, and they’re barely getting by,” Ruell said in a phone interview with The Daily Signal. “We need opportunities for middle-class-wage jobs in this community, and Gotion has the ability to provide those.”
Ruell said she also supports Gotion because the corporation will keep the U.S. competitive in the electric vehicle industry.
“The automakers want to move into this area, and we should be doing what we can to help them do that,” Ruell told The Daily Signal. “If you look at the stats of automobile companies and where they are with the EV, we’re not at the top. If it wasn’t for Tesla, we wouldn’t even be in the picture as a country when it comes to EVs, so we shouldn’t be stopping this [the Gotion plant] for political reasons.”
Hoekstra, the state GOP chairman, said he agrees that the U.S. needs to stay competitive in the global automobile industry. But, he said, he doesn’t believe America’s strategy ought to be partnering with a communist regime.
“I don’t think China’s a great partner. They do not have America’s or America’s workers or America’s economy as their point of interest,” Hoekstra said. “They want to destroy it. They want to destroy us.”
The U.S. could and should partner with companies from free market-friendly places such as Japan, South Korea, or Europe, he said.
Ken McIntyre contributed to this report.
