When Michigan Congressman John Moolenaar surveyed his constituents last year about a planned Gotion electric vehicle battery component plant slated for Mecosta County, 91% opposed.
In the months since, not much has changed.
A survey conducted by the Big Rapids Pioneer news site last week came to largely the same conclusion, with the vast majority of reader submissions to the online poll a “no” for Gotion in Green Charter Township.
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“The Big Rapids Pioneer seeks your opinion on Gotion North America’s planned electric battery component plant in Green Charter Township, Mecosta Count,” the survey read. “Announced in 2022, producing components for electric vehicle batteries using lithium iron phosphate. It aims to create jobs for Mecosta County residents. Gotion operates internationally across the United States, South America, Africa, Europe, and Asia. Do you support the project?”
A whopping 7,605 out of 8,786 reader submissions answered in the negative, while only 1,172 backed the company, which has documented links to the Chinese Communist Party.
The results equate to nearly 87% of respondents in opposition, and a little over 13% in support. That data largely aligns with Moolenaar’s survey, which was conducted on Facebook, as well as others highlighted by the Mecosta Environmental & Security Alliance last year.
A door-to-door poll in Green Charter Township found 97% opposed to Gotion, while it was 81% opposed in a mail survey in Barton Township. About 68% opposed in Colfax Township, where less than half of surveys were returned, and it was a similar result for the 43% who responded to a mail survey in Grant Township: 84% opposed.
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An online poll conducted in the city of Big Rapids with no context on the project garnered opposition from 51%, according to MESA.
“Overall, these polls indicate a community largely uneasy about the project, with environmental issues and the involvement of a foreign nation being principal concerns,” MESA reported last year. “The variance in support levels across townships suggests differing perceptions and levels of awareness about the project’s implications.”
The data also shows those who live closest to the proposed project are the most opposed.
While the results of the Pioneer survey last week simply confirm what many locals already know, they lend weight to Moolenaar’s repeated calls on Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to rescind a $715 million taxpayer subsidy for CCP-linked Gotion that was secretly negotiated by her administration in 2022.
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Moolenaar intensified those efforts in October after prosecutors announced charges against Chinese students at the University of Michigan. In one case, five Chinese students studying at the University of Michigan through a joint venture with Shanghai Jiao Tong University were charged with spying on Michigan National Guard’s Camp Grayling during military exercises with Taiwanese soldiers.
In the other, a Chinese student was charged with illegally voting in the 2024 election.
The planned Gotion 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.
“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 in late October. “U-M President Santa Ono needs to shut down his university’s institute with Shanghai Jiao Tong University, which collaborates with China’s military.
“Until these actions happen, our state’s security, elections, universities, and auto supply chains will remain vulnerable to CCP influence,” he said.
While Whitmer and state Democrats ignored those concerns, Santa Ono recently informed Moolenaar the university plans to heed his advice. In a letter to Moolenaar cited by CBS News, Ono said UM has officially initiated a six-month process to “officially end the partnership” with Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
“The University of Michigan is making the right decision in ending its joint institute with a Chinese university, and more of our nation’s universities should follow U-M’s action,” Moolenaar, chairman of the House Select Committee on the CCP, said in a statement.
“My committee has put a spotlight on the fact that too many American universities are collaborating with CCP researchers on critical technologies including weapons, artificial intelligence, and nuclear physics. The results of these collaborations could one day be turned against our country, and we cannot allow that to happen,” he said. “In U-M’s case, its Chinese joint institute partner was helping the CCP modernize its military, and then five students who came to Michigan from China through the joint institute ended up spying on Camp Grayling. American universities should end these types of joint institutes and protect the security of our nation’s research.”
The decision at UM followed a little over a week after a newly elected Mecosta County Board of Commissioners voted 5-2 to rescind Resolution 2023-04, which stated the prior commission’s support for Gotion, citing “new information and developments … concerning the project and its ownership structure with direct ties to the Chinese Communist Party CCP and broader issues of foreign investment.”
“When 92% of the Mecosta County residents opposed the Chinese battery plant in our community, the board of commissioners should have listened,” newly elected board Chairman Chris Zimmerman said. “When our congressman says there are security concerns with China in our community, the board of commissioners should have reversed their approval of the project.”
The move, which was applauded by many locals, follows a similar shift in support in Green Charter Township, where locals recalled officials who approved the Gotion deal from office.
The battery component plant remains mired in litigation over the opposition in Green Charter Township, with court records showing company officials bribed the township’s previous leaders to gain approvals.
President-elect Donald Trump, meanwhile, has made it clear he’s “100% OPPOSED.”
“The Gotion plant would be very bad for the State and our Country,” Trump wrote in an August post to Truth Social. “It would put Michiganders under the thumb of the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing.”