Congressman John Moolenaar is pointing to repeated incidents involving Chinese students at the University of Michigan in his calls for state leaders to take action to protect taxpayers and national security.
The most recent incident came to light on Wednesday, when Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and Washtenaw County Prosecutor Eli Savit announced a University of Michigan student faces felony criminal charges after the 19-year-old Chinese national registered to vote and cast an illegal ballot on Sunday. The vote was uncovered only after the student attempted to retrieve the ballot. To make matters worse, the student’s ballot will be counted in the 2024 election.
The 19-year-old student “registered to vote on Sunday using his UM student identification and other documentation establishing residency in Ann Arbor, signed a document identifying himself as a U.S. citizen and his ballot was entered into a tabulator,” according to the Detroit News.
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Two sources familiar with Michigan election laws told the news site the vote will be included in the 2024 tally because there’s no way to retrieve the ballot once it’s been tabulated.
“Secretary Jocelyn Benson has hurt the public’s trust in Michigan elections as her department failed to prevent this illegal vote from being cast and will count it in the results next week. The University of Michigan should expel this student for violating our laws and our state’s leaders need to take serious action against the Chinese Communist Party’s attempts to influence our state,” Moolenaar said in a statement. “Secretary Benson must tell us how she will prevent similar election fraud in the next week, and how she will secure our elections against CCP interference.”
The illegal vote follows other concerning incidents involving Chinese nationals tied to the University of Michigan and its joint institute with Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Earlier this month, five Chinese nationals studying in Michigan through that partnership were charged with spying on the Michigan National Guard’s Camp Graying during military exercises with Taiwanese soldiers.
It was the second time UM Chinese students were caught spying on military installations, following a similar episode involving three Chinese nationals busted at the Naval Air Station Key West in Florida in 2020.
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Last year, the Wall Street Journal reported the FBI is aware of over 100 incidents of Chinese nationals gate crashing at sensitive sites across the U.S. in the past three years.
Those incidents and others have raised serious national security concerns about a $715 million taxpayer-funded business incentive deal negotiated in secret by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and privileged lawmakers to bring a CCP-linked Gotion EV battery component plant that’s strongly opposed by Republicans and local residents.
The planned facility in Mecosta County is about 88 miles from Camp Graying and just minutes from an artificial intelligence laboratory at Ferris State University, one of only two universities in the U.S. funded by the National Security Agency and Department of Defense to conduct cyber studies, satellite studies, and cybersecurity training.
Last year, the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the CCP and the United States heard testimony from former Director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center Bill Evania, who told lawmakers he’s “100%” certain the CCP would leverage the Gotion plant for espionage.
Obama Defense Secretary Leon Panetta offered similar testimony to Congress earlier this year.
“I don’t think there’s any question that they are going to take advantage of that situation and I think we have to be very vigilant about what the hell is going on,” Panetta said.
The situation prompted lawmakers to ban the Department of Defense from purchasing products from Gotion, due to parent company Gotion High-Tech’s partnerships with China’s People’s Liberation Army.
Congress is considering a similar ban for the Department of Homeland Security.
“The CCP is successfully infiltrating and influencing communities and critical sectors across this nation and the Biden-Harris Administration is asleep at the wheel,” Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, said in a statement this week.
The committee released a report titled “CCP Political Warfare: Federal Agencies Urgently Need a Government-Wide Strategy” that shows most of the “solutions and policies” in 25 federal sectors reviewed through multiple hearings and dozens of briefings “either ignore, placate, or only weakly address the CCP’s efforts to influence and infiltrate the United States.”
For weeks, Moolenaar has been calling on officials at UM, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Democrats who control the Michigan Legislature to do their part.
“Governor Whitmer must cancel the state’s $715 million giveaway of taxpayer money to CCP-affiliated Gotion and end its plans to build near Camp Grayling,” Moolenaar said. “U-M President Santa Ono needs to shut down his university’s institute with Shanghai Jiao Tong University, which collaborates with China’s military.
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“Until these actions happen, our state’s security, elections, universities, and auto supply chains will remain vulnerable to CCP influence,” he said.
Moolenaar has also called on Whitmer to issue a statement regarding the CCP espionage incident at Camp Graying, face questions about why the Michigan National Guard failed to stop the espionage, and to call on the legislature to block state funding for the Shanghai Jiao Tong University.