Outrage brewing over plans for China-linked battery company in Michigan: ‘Don’t want CCP in our small town’

Former Republican gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon blasted Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer Wednesday for moving forward with plans to allow $715 million dollars of taxpayer money to fund a Chinese Communist Party-linked business in the state.

Gotion High tech-Co., a battery company based in Hefei, China, announced its plans last year for a roughly $2.4 billion electric vehicle battery plant in Big Rapids, Mich. that would bring an estimated 2,350 jobs to the state, according to a press release from Whitmer’s office.

Dixon, however, said a CCP-linked business shouldn’t be allowed to operate in the state and called out Whitmer for allowing the company to come to Michigan. 

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“In the company by-laws that are on the company website, it clearly states that when they get to Michigan, they have to have a CCP organization on site, a Chinese Communist Party organization on site, a propaganda arm of the CCP, right in the center of the country in Michigan,” she explained on “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”

Dixon added that the battery plant was “nowhere near” any of the state’s major automobile manufacturers and questioned what the company would be doing. She claimed Gotion was also bringing in 250-300 Chinese nationals who would be filling some of the jobs and would be staying at a local university. 

“These are not going to be American jobs. They’re bringing Chinese nationals in to take these jobs. And they will be housed at the local university where the local university has just so happened to be telling people ‘this is such a good idea, you have to have this corporation here,’” she told host Tucker Carlson.  

More than 100 residents of Green Charter Township and Big Rapids in rural Mecosta County, Michigan, showed up to a March 14 board meeting to voice concerns over the presence of the Chinese-owned company. 

“The thing that drives me the most crazy about this is that this is a Chinese-owned company. A Chinese-owned company is a communist company. Why would you bring a communist company to Big Rapids, Michigan, when we have troops mobilizing right now to fight China?” one resident, who identified himself as an Iraq War veteran, told the town’s board members.

Gotion put the planned construction in Big Rapids on hold in February after the town board unanimously voted days earlier to request a federal review for any potential national security risks associated with having a Chinese-owned company in the area, according to a report by The Detroit News.

Dixon shared the whole thing seems “suspect.”

 “Now you have the community rising up. So, Big Rapids actually said, ‘You know what, we don’t want this in our town. We don’t… we want this to move out.’ Goshen said, ‘We’re going to move to the town next door,’” she stated.

“They’re still pushing. You still see local people coming up and saying, this does not make sense for us. We don’t want the arm of the Chinese Communist Party right here in our small town.”

She added that the company would have “a lot of opportunity to spy on the United States” since they would be “right in the center of the country.”

Gotion announced the plant was “not a done deal,” citing the pushback from local residents. Green Charter Township will hold another meeting April 5 with the proposed plant on the agenda. 

Fox News’ Brandon Gillespie contributed to this report