Owners of in-progress China-tied battery plant in Michigan default on state deal, ending project

A Michigan battery plant project tied to China-linked Gotion is no longer moving forward after the state found the company was in default in its agreement. 

The Michigan Economic Development Corporation, which initially approved pumping $175 million into the project, released a letter Thursday announcing its plan to pull out of the project over the company’s default. 

“This is not the outcome we hoped for,” the Michigan Economic Development Corporation said in a statement.

Officials said the state of Michigan will pursue $23.6 million repayment of money it spent on the land slated for the factory. 

The Gotion battery plant deal came under scrutiny from locals almost immediately after it was announced publicly in September 2022. Locals were worried for several reasons, citing the environmental impacts and disruption to their community. But one of the most important and controversial reasons was Gotion’s ties to China, and specifically the Chinese Communist Party, Just the News previously reported.

While the deal’s critics celebrated the end of the project, they believe the state and Democat Gretchen Whitmer should never have approved it in the first place. 

“What did Governor Gretchen Whitmer and the MEDC expect when they collaborated  in a ‘deal’ with a company that is deeply tied to the Chinese Communist Party, who is engaged in unrestricted warfare against the United States of America?” Joseph Cella, Michigan-China Economic and Security Review Group Director, said in a statement. 

“This was a textbook subnational incursion and influence operation.  You don’t subsidize these things, you stop them,” Cella added. 

Despite previous claims to the contrary by company executives, Gotion admitted in a Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) filing that the company is “partially subsidized through government funding supplied by the People's Republic of China.” 

Previous reports show that Gotion is wholly owned by its parent company, Gotion High-tech Co., which participated in programs designed to acquire military technology for China and employs at least 923 Chinese Communist Party members.