A rural Michigan community has lost its bid to block a major electric vehicle battery maker from building a factory in Michigan, a state that has welcomed Chinese investment for decades.
Gotion Inc. had established a development deal with the board of Green Charter Township. U.S. District Judge Jane Beckering, in a preliminary injunction Friday, ruled that the township’s agreement with Gotion remains valid.
Chuck Thelen, Gotion’s vice president of North American manufacturing, told The Detroit News that Gotion is ready to work with the township “to move the project forward.”
However, the board members who approved the arrangement have now been voted out of office and replaced by anti-Gotions.
“We’re just disappointed at this time,” Green Charter Township Supervisor Jason Kruse, told The Detroit News, adding that there has been no decision about filing an appeal.
Gotion’s deal with the township is set to create 2,350 jobs generated by a $2.34 billion investment that many see as a way to secure the economic future of the township, a rural enclave just over a three-hour drive northwest from Detroit, the auto industry hub. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and other state officials support the agreement.
The township’s residents are objecting to a U.S. company with Chinese affiliations setting up shop some 100 miles from a National Guard base, a distrust that mirrors the current state of U.S.-China relations, and suspicions that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will have an office in the plant, a rumor that Thelen denied last year at an meeting at a local high school.
In June, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which reviews foreign investments for national security risks, concluded that Gotion's purchase of land for an EV battery plant wasn’t a security issue.
On Aug. 1, Gotion, the U.S. subsidiary of the Chinese battery company Gotion High Tech Co. Ltd., received authorization from Green Charter Township to set up a plant.
Gotion filed suit after the township’s new board rescinded an agreement that would extend water to the factory site from the city of Big Rapids and also voted to drop support for the project.
Last year, residents also expressed concerns about the daily 715,000 gallons of water the plant would use in manufacturing to produce cathodes and anodes for EV batteries.
“The water that we use never even comes in contact with the materials we process. If you get these materials wet, you destroy the material,” Thelen said at that meeting at the local high school, according to a news report. “So, no, we will not be pumping materials, minerals or chemicals into the water.”
Green Charter Township is a self-governing entity of 3,000 people within the Michigan city of Big Rapids. The median household income for the township is $53,882, according to 2020 U.S. Census data, which is lower than Michigan’s median income of $64,392 and the U.S. national median of $76,521.
VOA’s Calla Yu contributed to this report.
