Text messages between Gotion Vice President Chuck Thelen and former Green Charter Township Supervisor Jim Chapman confirm Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) hosted a member of the Chinese Communist Party at the governor’s summer residence on Mackinac Island.
Thelen was organizing a visit to Green Charter Township for Gotion High-tech Chairman Zhen Li in mid-2023, according to texts recently made public from a lawsuit involving the company and township.
In an April 2024 Q & A, Thelen was asked if Zhen Li had ever visited Mecosta County and he answered affirmatively, but went beyond that:
In July 2023, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer hosted Zhen Li, a Chinese Communist Party member and Gotion High-tech chairman, at the Mackinac residence.
Gotion VP Chuck Thelen alluded to the meeting here in April 2024.
Newly released Thelen texts confirm the Whitmer/Li visit. pic.twitter.com/T3I4WBjW9F
— The Midwesterner (@Th_Midwesterner) September 27, 2024
“We’ve also met with some higher officials in Lansing. We met some higher officials in another location during the summer time because those officials were on vacation so we went to where they were,” Thelen said.
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In the text messages between Thelen and Chapman, Thelen said the “chairman” wanted to visit July 12th or 13th.
“I hope to visit the (proposed Gotion) site early afternoon then (Ferris State University) for a short tour and then we have to meet Gretchen (Whitmer) on Mackinac Island,” Thelen wrote.
Photographs that circulated throughout the Green Charter Township community on July 11 showed several representatives of Gotion in the area that day.
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Zhen Li is founder of Gotion High-Tech and Gotion Inc. is the wholly owned U.S. subsidiary. He is a former government employee and participant in the local communist government leadership.
Whitmer gave Gotion $715 million in Michigan taxpayer cash and incentives.
According to Moomoo Technologies, he was “a researcher at the Economic Research Center of the Hefei Municipal Government,” and a “delegate to the 13th, 14th, and 15th sessions of the Hefei Municipal People’s Congress.”
A 1986 Central Intelligence Agency briefing on “Provincial Organizations” made public in 2011 “identifies individuals who hold positions on the provincial level in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), legislatures, government, and selected mass organizations.” It contained the names of that era’s leaders of the Hefei Municipal People’s Congress.
A video posted in 2015 by Gotion shed more light on Zhen Li’s access and influence in the CCP.
The Gotion founder says, “I used to work in the government and also have experience in government agencies.”
.@th_Midwesterner exposed a Michigan taxpayer-funded battery maker’s connections to the CCP & now they’re in panic mode. The company hid this video of their founder talking about working with Chinese dictator Xi Jinping. Why the secrecy? It would be a shame if this went viral… pic.twitter.com/q2Mwe81FVj
— Tudor Dixon (@TudorDixon) March 29, 2023
He recounted an interaction with communist dictator Xi Jinping while Li show ed off the company’s electric bus technology, “When President Xi visited Hefei last time, I introduced to him about the battery we provided for JAC’s electric vehicle”, and touted the growth in battery capacity.
Whitmer has a penchant for posting photos and videos from the Mackinac summer residence. She didn’t post anything from this visit, according to a review of her social media accounts.