by Pete Hoekstra for The Gatestone Institute.
Two Chinese companies, Gotion and CATL, are on the verge of building two new battery manufacturing facilities in Michigan. These companies were lured by billions in state and local tax incentives and infrastructure investments, and the environmental requirements buried in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.
The state of Michigan is making a big bet on electric vehicle (EV) technology in concert with the Chinese Communist Party. What could go wrong?
The answer to that is simple: Plenty. At a time when bipartisan members of Congress on the Select Committee on the CCP are conducting war games simulating a U.S. response to a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, one has to ask is this the right moment to seek more Chinese investment in the state. Especially when one of those projects is just 100 miles from where the U.S. is training Taiwanese troops to defend against a Chinese Communist invasion.
Already, Virginia, home to numerous military and intelligence facilities, has rejected one of the two projects out of national security concerns.
As... outlined in the unprecedented joint news conference by the FBI and MI-5, the threat from the Chinese Communist Party is real, dangerous and pervasive.
Another red flag is the secrecy shrouding the projects. Although the state is in the process of providing substantial sums in taxpayer money to private entities, many of the details have been covered by Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs).
Members of Congress, state legislators, local elected officials, and state and congressional staff have been forced to sign NDAs so they can access information taxpayers and the media have been prevented from seeing.
What is so secret that it requires taxpayers to be shielded from information about the projects that their dollars will fund? Local newspapers have requested information through Freedom of Information Act requests, but they have been denied.
Not only are the projects shrouded in a veil of secrecy, there are legitimate concerns about various organizations actually adhering to the Foreign Agents Reporting Act (FARA). This act requires individuals working on behalf of a foreign entity to register their activities with the Justice.... Former Ambassador Joe Cella and I have... have jointly submitted a request to the Justice Department to review specific individuals and their compliance with federal disclosure laws.
Now is the time for both battery projects to be paused. It is time for legislators to engage in their fiduciary responsibility, recognize the changed environment, and re-evaluate plans to spend taxpayer dollars to fund two Chinese companies, the CCP, and potentially even the Taliban and the re-emerging Islamic State. It is a new day and US taxpayer money should not be backing potential adversaries.
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Peter Hoekstra was US Ambassador to the Netherlands during the Trump administration. He served 18 years in the U.S. House of Representatives representing the second district of Michigan and served as Chairman and Ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee and is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Gatestone Institute.
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Pictured: Ford's CEO Jim Farley (L), Ford's Executive Chairman Bill Ford (C), and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer celebrate the announcement of the CATL plant on February 13, 2023, in Romulus, Michigan. (Photo by Bill Pugliano/Getty Images)
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