A new report on government vulnerabilities to the Chinese Communist Party’s infiltration and influence operations repeatedly points to the Gotion electric vehicle battery component plant in Michigan.

The U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability last week published a staff report titled “CCP Political Warfare: Federal Agencies Urgently Need a Government-Wide Strategy.”

The report stems from a review of 25 federal sectors through multiple hearings and dozens of briefings, concluding that “most agencies’ solutions and policies either ignore, placate, or only weakly address the CCP’s efforts to influence and infiltrate the United States.”

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“The CCP is successfully infiltrating and influencing communities and critical sectors across this nation and the Biden-Harris Administration is asleep at the wheel,” committee chair Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., said in a statement. The new report “details how federal agencies have failed to understand, acknowledge or develop a plan to combat CCP political warfare and Americans are left to fend for themselves.”

The report points to a $715 million taxpayer-funded business incentive deal for Gotion negotiated in secret by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s administration and privileged lawmakers in 2022 to build an EV battery component plant near Big Rapids that’s strongly opposed by Republicans and local residents.

The report notes Gotion is owned by Gotion High-Tech, a company that “employs more than 900 CCP members,” and that a “visiting delegation of CCP officials set up a talent recruitment work station at Gotion’s California headquarters in 2017.”

While the Biden-Harris administration has proposed new national security regulations to better monitor “foreign nations undertaking transactions within 100 miles of certain U.S. military facilities,” such as the National Guard’s Camp Grayling about 88 miles north of the Gotion site, those regulations “would provide a concerning loophole to Gotion,” according to the report.

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“Because enforcement of the rules would not be retroactive, Gotion would escape review,” according to the report.

That reality is concerning to U.S. ambassadors Joseph Cella and Peter Hoekstra, who testified about the CCP-Gotion influence campaign in Michigan.

Cella highlighted court filings what demonstrate Gotion won favor with since-recalled Green Charter Township trustees “with all-expense paid trips to China, million dollar real estate deals, and promises of employment,” according to the report.

Cella also discussed examples of Gotion executives are using their relationships in Michigan to gain access to places sensitive to U.S. national security.

“In February of 2022, the top executives of Gotion, PRC nationals that came in, leadership in the Chinese Community Party, Chinese people’s consultant of Congress, the requested to divert from their planned itinerary and asked to see the AI laboratory at Ferris State University,” Cella said, according to the report.

“Ferris State University is one of only two universities in the United States of America that are funded by the (National Security Agency) and (Department of Defense) to do cyber studies, satellite studies, cybersecurity, and the driver of the bus was told not to ask them any questions or have conversations with them,” he said. “That program has nothing to do with what Gotion’s designs are. I would say probably we know what their designs are, and that is indicative and troubling. So our guard needs to be up, and it is not.”

The alleged bribes for Green Charter Township officials and interest in Ferris State’s AI lab are among similar activity in Michigan and other states.

Other examples involve court records that show Whitmer hosted CCP member and Gotion High-Tech Chairman Zhen Li at the governor’s mansion on Mackinac Island in mid-2023, criminal charges against five Chinese University of Michigan students caught taking pictures of military training of Taiwanese soldiers at Camp Grayling, and Gotion’s cozy relationship with local officials in Illinois, where the company is building another plant.

The latter centers on Gotion’s recent hire of former Kankakee County Board Chairman Andrew Wheeler, who led his colleagues in negotiating a 30-year tax abatement for Gotion’s coming factory in Manteno, Ill.

The House committee report calls for a government-wide strategy to counter CCP influence that involves four components: transparent communication about CCP political warfare, embracing more targeted strategies, “fostering the depth of knowledge needed to defeat unrestricted warfare,” and a public awareness campaign to thwart CCP ambitions.

The report further calls for “principled leaders who are willing to speak candidly about CCP infiltration of influential circles, communities, and businesses across the United States” to “turn the tide in America’s favor.”

“It is past time for federal agencies to take this treat seriously and fulfill their responsibilities to the American people,” Comer said. “Our report offers several solutions federal agencies can implement now with existing resources to address the CCP threat and protect the American people.”