EXCLUSIVE: Two former US ambassadors are sounding the alarm about the increasing number of green energy projects being developed across the country with the involvement of Chinese companies.
Former US ambassadors Peter Hoekstra and Joseph Cella said Chinese companies, which are subject to strict Chinese laws, have made a concerted effort to take advantage of US green energy targets. The companies, they said, are using U.S. tax incentives to build facilities and projects in the U.S., bolster China’s industry and ensure the U.S. continues to depend on technology from China.
“It would be very ironic if we move to electric vehicles to the numbers that the Biden administration is talking about and the main part comes from China,” Hoekstra, who served as US ambassador to the Netherlands from 2018 to 2021, told Fox News Digital in an interview. “That’s a horrible, horrible place to be.”
“Right now, electric vehicle sales are about 3 to 5% of new car sales,” he continued. “Now is the time for the US to establish its own capabilities rather than increasingly relying on an unreliable and menacing adversary.”
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President Biden set a goal of half of all cars sold in the US to be zero-emissions by 2030 as part of his aggressive climate agenda shortly after taking office, and has repeatedly visited EV manufacturing facilities. (Nic Antaya/Getty Images)
Hoekstra added that China’s dominance of the entire green energy supply chain, from developing critical mineral mines in Africa to building battery components, demonstrates willfulness that is “very dangerous, not only to our national security, but also to for our economic security and prosperity”.
Earlier this year, Hoekstra, who also formerly chaired the House Intelligence Committee, founded the Michigan-China Economic and Security Review Group, a watchdog group dedicated to reviewing Chinese economic investments across the country, with a particular focus on Michigan. Gretchen Whitmer, Michigan’s Democratic governor, boasted last month that her administration recently pulled $16.6 billion worth of electric vehicle (EV) and battery projects into the state.
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Cella – who served as the US ambassador to Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Tuvalu and Tonga from 2019 to 2021 – joined Hoekstra’s group as a director.
Together, Hoekstra and Cella have specifically highlighted two EV battery factory projects that have been proposed for Michigan. The first, planned for Big Rapids, Michigan, involves Hefei, China-based Gotion High-Tech, while the second, proposed for Marshall, Michigan, involves Ningde, China-based Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL).
Former US Ambassador to the Netherlands Peter Hoekstra speaks at a press conference at the US Embassy in The Hague on January 10, 2018. (JOHN THYS/AFP via Getty Images)
“Subnational raids are on the way,” Cella told Fox News Digital in an interview. “China is on the hunt. The Chinese Communist Party is on the hunt. They’re looking for these open doors to kick in, in states. And they’ve had great reign. You just have to look at Gotion or CATL – textbook examples of this influence operation.”
The former ambassadors said the Whitmer administration has pledged a total of about $4 billion in tax breaks and infrastructure improvements to facilitate construction of the Gotion plant and second facility, a Ford Motor plant for which CATL has pledged to provide key technology.
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“The details of the business relationship between CATL and Gotion are different,” Hoekstra said. “But the bottom line is that we are enriching China’s battery industry at the expense of providing an opportunity for Americans or companies in our allied countries to expand and grow their business.”
In October, Whitmer announced that Gotion would invest $2.4 billion to build two 550,000-square-foot manufacturing plants along with other 260-acre support facilities in northern Michigan. She applauded the proposal, saying it would cement Michigan’s status as the “global hub of mobility and electrification.”
However, Republican lawmakers and local leaders have paid more attention to Gotion’s proposal, citing Chinese ownership and ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The corporate bylaws of Gotion High-Tech, whose California-based subsidiary Gotion proposed the Michigan plant, require the company to “conduct party activities in accordance with the Constitution of the Communist Party of China.”
Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer has repeatedly touted electric battery plants proposed by Chinese companies in her state. (AP Photo/Al Goldis, file)
Amid massive outcry from locals who have expressed concern about a CCP-affiliated company building a factory nearby, Gotion put its plans on hold in February. On Wednesday, Gotion leaders and local officials held a virtual public roundtable in an effort to allay concerns.
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“There is no communist plot within Gotion to turn Big Rapids into a center to spread communism,” Chuck Thelen, Gotion’s vice president of North American operations, said at the event, MLive reported.
Prior to the event, however, Hoekstra and Cella wrote a letter to Assistant Attorney General for National Security Matthew Olsen and the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) Unit of the Department of Justice. They asked Olsen and the FARA unit to investigate individuals in Michigan advocating foreign interests.
“The speed and secrecy with which Michigan State officials have collaborated with state and local leaders jeopardizes our national security and should receive the strictest scrutiny through both a (Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS)) Review as an investigation to determine that FARA has been violated,” they said.
Ford CEO Jim Farley announces on February 13 the company’s partnership with Contemporary Amperex Technology to build an electric vehicle battery plant in Marshall, Michigan. (Bill Pugliano/Getty Images)
Similarly, national safety experts and lawmakers have sounded the alarm over Ford’s agreement with CATL to build its own EV battery plant in Michigan. Senator Marco Rubio, R-Fla., the Vice Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, requested a CFIUS review of that plan.
Hoekstra and Cella argued that the Biden administration was largely absent from key talks about the Gotion and CATL facilities, among other projects around the country with Chinese involvement. CATL is reportedly in talks to provide technology for a Tesla plant in the US, announcing in March that it would help develop a battery storage plant in Texas.
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“The Biden administration — there is no clear, consistent policy on how to respond and deal with China,” Hoekstra told Fox News Digital.
In late March, the Biden administration proposed a set of rules on how it would implement the EV tax credit provisions of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. Under the provisions, consumers can only receive tax credits for EVs manufactured with a certain amount of critical minerals and components from the US or countries with which the US has a free trade agreement.
However, the administration refused to weigh in on whether Ford-CATL or Gotion’s proposals, as domestic projects with Chinese involvement, would qualify for tax breaks.
Former US Ambassador to Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Tonga and Tuvalu Joseph Cella (right) is pictured in September 2020. (state department)
“States cannot be sovereign entities when it comes to national security,” Cella said. “I think that shows the importance of the assessment group’s mission statement. We’ll scale this up and fight this elsewhere, not just for projects that are underway, but looking at things that are currently there and things that may be happening prevent.”
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Shortly after taking office, Biden set a goal of half of all cars sold in the US to be zero-emissions by 2030 as part of his aggressive climate agenda and has repeatedly visited EV manufacturing facilities, including some in Michigan.
China currently holds 78% of the world’s EV battery cell production capacity, according to a Brookings Institution analysis released in July. The country also controls much of the world’s mineral mining and refining capacity.
Whitmer’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
Thomas Catenacci is a political writer for Fox News Digital.
