BIG RAPIDS, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – The controversial $2.4 billion Gotion EV battery plant in Mecosta County, outside of Big Rapids, has been moving ahead despite the objection of community residents and others who are concerned with different aspects of the project including their China links. Although the development agreement between Green Charter Township and Gotion has not been signed yet it’s expected to happen soon.

In the meantime, according to an article in the Washington Examiner, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) has requested a briefing from the Treasury Department’s CFIUS panel about their part in allowing the Gotion project to move forward. CFIUS is the Treasury Department’s Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States and they are tasked with reviewing national security implications of foreign investments in US companies or operations.

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Gotion Inc. is a California-based company whose parent company is Gotion High-Tech Power Energy which is based in China. According to a Foreign Agents Registration Act filing (FARA), the China firm “wholly” controls Gotion and formed a Chinese Communist Party branch in 2010 and then a CCP committee in 2014 according to the Daily Caller. Also reported by many media outlets is the fact that Gotion High-Tech’s “Articles of Association” state: “The Company shall set up a Party organization and carry out Party activities in accordance with the Constitution of the Communist Party of China. The Company shall ensure necessary conditions for carrying out Party activities.”

The Gotion project, supported by Democratic Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and President Joe Biden, had been “reviewed” by CFIUS in so much as they refused to look further into the deal because they said it wasn’t in their “jurisdiction” to do so. Gotion representatives said that CFIUS didn’t find the acquisition to be a “covered transaction” or a “covered real estate transaction” which meant it wasn’t within CFIUS’s jurisdiction.

According to an article in JD Supra, which provides legal analysis on varying topics, they said, “CFIUS’s jurisdiction over real estate transactions is limited to acquisitions or leases of sites near certain military installations and other sensitive government locations. CFIUS also has the authority to scrutinize foreign investment transactions where a foreign person will gain or potentially gain control over, or make certain other types of investment in, a U.S. business. CFIUS apparently found that the Gotion land acquisition satisfied neither requirement. In particular, CFIUS seems to have found that the plant would be a startup, or “greenfield,” investment that does not involve an acquisition of or investment in an existing U.S. business.”

Generally speaking, many Republicans and national security experts have been raising concerns about China-related developments that are occurring in the United States. In Michigan, many are also raising concerns over the fact that the Gotion project will be sitting within 60 miles of military armories and 100 miles from Camp Grayling, the largest National Guard training facility in the United States.

According to the Washington Examiner, McMorris Rodgers recently emailed CFIUS to get information about the Gotion matter as part of her broader investigation into President Joe Biden’s climate agenda. McMorris Rodgers told the Examiner, “Energy and Commerce Republicans are committed to preventing the Biden administration from handing China the keys to our auto future. That’s why we’ve asked CFIUS for a briefing on their role in Gotion’s approval and have recently begun probing Ford’s partnership with CCP-linked EV company CATL.”

The Ford Motor Company’s lithium iron phosphate battery facility project in Marshall Michigan has a connection to the Chinese battery firm Contemporary Amperex Technology. Both Gotion and Ford projects are receiving millions of taxpayer dollars in funding. McMorris Rodgers said, “Partnerships like these play right into China’s hands to take American jobs and weaken our national security.”

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Erin Walsh, a senior research fellow for international studies at the Heritage Foundation’s Asia Studies Center, and who served in the National Security Council and in the Commerce and State departments under former President Donald Trump told the Examiner, “At this point in time, all federal and state government officials have been apprised of the serious threat of the CCP to the U.S.” She went on to say, “They have infiltrated almost every aspect of American society over the past 20 plus years. In the case of Gotion, state and federal legislators, the local community have stated their opposition and concerns about their ownership structure and ties to the CCP.”