Residents of Green Charter, a small town in Michigan, voted out all five members of the township board last week after the officials approved tax breaks for an electric vehicle battery factory linked to the Chinese Communist Party.
The five Republican board members were replaced in a recall election by nonpartisan candidates, who immediately changed the locks on government buildings so that the former officials could no longer enter. NewsNation correspondent Brian Entin noted from inside the empty government building after the board members vacated the premises that “this is something Americans all across the country almost fantasize about, booting out their local government if they don't like them and they're not getting the job done.”
The factories in dispute are operated by Gotion, a company based in China that hosted official trips to communist memorials two years ago during which employees wore Red Army uniforms and pledged to “fight for communism to the end of my life.”
Michigan Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer announced last year that Gotion would be investing $2.4 billion to construct two plants in Green Charter, resulting in 260 acres controlled by the firm in northern Michigan. Whitmer lauded the investment by the Chinese company as ensuring that Michigan would be “the global hub of mobility and electrification.”
The Michigan State Senate Appropriations Committee allocated $175 million in state taxpayer funds to Gotion earlier this year. Representative John Moolenaar, a Republican from Michigan whose constituents reside in the same county as the facilities, criticized the move.
"To take millions of dollars from Michigan taxpayers and give it to a subsidiary of a company that pledges allegiance to the Chinese Communist Party is a historic mistake by the Michigan legislature,” Moolenaar said in a statement earlier this year. “This proposed facility will be 100 miles from Camp Grayling where the Michigan National Guard has trained military partners from Taiwan to prepare for possible CCP aggression.”
