Vance Taps Into Voter Frustration Over Proposed Chinese Battery Plant

Senator and Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance speaks about the economy at Majestic Friesians Horse Farms in Big Rapids, Mich., on Aug. 27, 2024. Jeff Kowalsky/AFP via Getty Images

BIG RAPIDS, Mich.—Vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), in a western Michigan rally on Aug. 27, criticized a controversial proposal to subsidize the construction of a Chinese-owned manufacturing plant in the region with U.S. tax dollars.

Vance told approximately 1,000 attendees that the plan, supported by the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC), was a threat to national security.

The company in question, Gotion Inc., manufactures batteries for electric vehicles and has registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, according to the registration document submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. The company, based in Fremont, California, is “wholly owned and controlled” by Gotion High-tech Co. Ltd., a Chinese company based near Hefei, a city in eastern China.

“Even some of the folks in Obama’s administration said that the Gotion factory plant is a threat to America’s national security,” Vance told the crowd.

MEDC is a public-private partnership agency that aims to create jobs in the state through private investment and tax incentives.

Preliminary speakers and some attendees at the Vance rally shared concerns about the plan on economic and security grounds.

Lori Brock, who hosted the rally on her horse farm in Green Charter Township, said Gotion initially said it would offer high wages to employees but reversed its position after the project was approved.

“We were told they were going to pay an average salary of $62,000,” Brock said, but noted that later reports put the wage to be offered at $24.50 per hour, which would equate to about $11,000 less per year. “It’s been going down and down and down, but yet nobody’s holding them accountable,” Brock said.

Pete Hoekstra, chair of the Michigan Republican Party, predicted that opposition to the project would be successful.

“This journey started 17 months ago,” Hoekstra said. “We’re not there yet, but that plant is not going to be built.”

Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers said, “This will be the first victory in pushing China out of the United States.”

Rally attendee and local farmer Tom Carson, 68, of Fremont, told The Epoch Times he’s concerned about the loss of farmland. He estimated that 2,000 acres of farmland would be lost to the project.

Others cited environmental concerns and the further loss of auto manufacturing jobs to Chinese-owned interests.

After backlash from residents following approval of the project last year, five of the seven members of the Green Charter Township board were recalled. The new board subsequently rescinded its approval.

That may not be enough to halt the project.

Gotion’s North American Manufacturing Vice President Chuck Thelen said the company welcomes the new board researching the township’s legal obligations, but “the agreements were made with the township, and the township will be required to adhere to the agreements.”

In June, five Republican lawmakers called on the Department of Homeland Security to immediately blacklist two leading Chinese battery companies on the basis that their supply chains are “deeply compromised” by the Chinese regime’s state-sponsored slave labor and Uyghur genocide.

In August 2023, Thelen said, “The rumors that you’ve heard about us bringing communism to North America are just flat-out fear-mongering and really have nothing based in reality,” according to Politico.

The Epoch Times has reached out to Gotion and Thelen for comment.

Dylan Morgan, Efthymis Oraiopoulos, Aldgra Fredly, and Frank Fang contributed to this report.