EXCLUSIVE: GOP Reps Will Host ‘Transparency’ Event In Town Where China-Linked Battery Maker Plans To Set Up Shop

Two GOP lawmakers will host a roundtable event next Thursday in an Illinois town where a China-linked battery maker plans to build a massive subsidized factory, the 🏢Daily Caller News Foundation has learned.

Republican Reps. John Moolenaar of Michigan and Darin LaHood of Illinois will be hosting the affair in Manteno, Illinois, where battery maker Gotion — which is fully “owned and controlled” by its China-based parent company Gotion High-Tech — plans to build a $2 billion facility. The event will feature local stakeholders and national security experts, and it is meant to provide “transparency” for locals who may be concerned about Gotion’s plans to set up shop in their community.

The event will also include activists and experts affiliated with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and Concerned Citizens of Manteno, as well as Republican Illinois State Rep. Dan Caulkins. The Manteno plant has the backing of Democratic Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, and the state is providing incentives worth $536 million to the project.

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“It’s important that the local community has transparency. All they have received right now is a lot of propaganda from Gotion,” Moolenaar, who also chairs the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), said in a statement shared with the DCNF. “And when you consider foreign nationals affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party will be on-site at Gotion, that raises serious concerns.”

Chuck Thelen, vice president of North American manufacturing for Gotion, told Politico in August 2023 that the CCP has no presence in the American subsidiary, but amended Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) filings show that Gotion has received Chinese government subsidies.

Thelen has been invited to attend the meeting in Manteno, but it is unclear if he or other Gotion personnel will attend, the DCNF has learned. The company was invited to a similar July event in Michigan — where Gotion is also trying to build subsidized facilities — but did not send any representatives.

The DCNF has extensively covered Gotion’s ties to China and the CCP via Gotion High-Tech, which employed more than 900 CCP members as of 2022.

A group of CCP officials set up a talent recruitment “work station” at Gotion’s California headquarters in 2017,  and a top executive was pictured attending at least two meetings of Gotion High-Tech’s internal CCP committee in 2022, DCNF investigations have found. Additionally, video footage obtained by the DCNF shows Gotion High-Tech employees dressed as Red Army soldiers and pledging allegiance to the CCP while on a company trip.

Former CIA Director Leon Panetta told Congress in January that there is a possibility that the CCP could utilize Gotion’s planned facility in Michigan “to gain the kind of advantages that they want that are counter, frankly, to the interests of the United States.”

Additionally, five Republicans called on the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to essentially bar Gotion High-Tech from shipping goods into the U.S. for alleged potential violations of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act through its ties to the U.S.-blacklisted paramilitary organization known as the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, which the DCNF reported on in October 2023.

“When you look at the direct connection between Gotion and state-owned enterprises in China, we can’t afford to make a mistake when it comes to our national security,” LaHood said in a statement shared with the DCNF. “We have an obligation and responsibility to protect our citizens, protect this country, and make sure foreign adversaries are not infiltrating our country.”

Gotion and Gotion High-Tech did not respond immediately to requests for comment.

(Featured Image Media Credit: Flickr/Official White House Photo by Carlos Fyfe)

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