Joseph Cella graduated in 1991. Courtesy | State Department

A Hillsdale alumnus has partnered with the Michigan Republican Party chairman to stop the construction of a factory in northern Michigan with alleged Chinese Communist Party affiliations.

Joseph Cella ’91 — a former ambassador to Fiji and other Pacific islands during the Trump administration — said he knew something needed to be done about the Gotion electric vehicle battery plant in Big Rapids and the Ford-Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited EV battery plant in Marshall after becoming aware of the companies’ connections to the Chinese Communist Party 18 months ago.

Gotion Inc., a U.S. subsidiary of China-based Gotion High-Tech Co., is set to build a $2.4 billion EV battery plant. In Feb. 2023, the Ford Motor Company announced a partnership with the Chinese EV battery manufacturer CATL to produce EV batteries in the U.S. 

Cella said three things made him reach out to his former ambassadorial colleague and current Michigan GOP Chairman Peter Hoekstra to found and launch the Michigan China Economic Security Review Group.

Cella said he first became suspicious when a Chinese company purchased agricultural land in North Dakota for a corn mill project. After that, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin rejected a CATL deal with Ford in Virginia. Then, a Detroit News report revealed the existence of the Gotion and Ford-CATL deals, the latter having migrated to Michigan after Youngkin rejected it. 

These deals included five- and 10-year binding and punitive nondisclosure agreements and used furtive codenames, Cella said. No one except a few elites in government and business initially knew about them.

The factory has drawn bipartisan criticism with both candidates in the U.S. Senate race in Michigan expressing concern about Gotion and accusing each other of Chinese ties. 

Mike Rogers, the Michigan Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, has been attacking the Gotion project in his campaigning. During a visit to Grand Rapids in August, Rogers said he’s never seen something that divides a community in the way the Gotion plant has. 

“This is not good for America in so many ways,” Rogers said. “We are not going to take a Chinese company with Chinese interests taking American jobs in our community.”

At a Grand Rapids campaign rally, Republican vice presidential nominee J. D. Vance said the factory was “a threat to America’s national security.”

Cella said the factory could threaten the Michigan’s National All-Domain Warfighting Center at Camp Grayling, which is about a 100 mile drive from Big Rapids. 

“We train Taiwanese troops there, so I think it was for a reason that that was selected by Gotion,” Cella said. “China will look for any opportunity to establish themselves and to gain an advantage.” 

Cella said he regularly cites U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, who said in a “Face the Nation” interview, “To date, we have seen Chinese companies and of course, in China, there’s really no distinction between private companies and the state.” 

Leon Panetta, former chief of staff to Bill Clinton, secretary of defense, and director of the CIA, identified the Gotion deal at a select committee hearing as a security risk, saying the CCP will use it for espionage, Cella said.

Glenn Kowlaske, a 37-year resident of Marshall Township and retired engineering manager, was recently elected as the Marshall Township treasurer. Kowlaske and others beat the previous leadership, who allegedly were not transparent about the Ford-CATL deal made for the 3,000-resident township and 7,000-resident city. 

“Chinese companies have a method of operating and they connect back to the Chinese government directly,” Kowlaske said. “It’s that influence that I think people have started to see across the country and the world that becomes concerning.”

Tracy Ruell, a Democratic candidate for Big Rapids’s state representative seat, said Gotion has already been operating in Ohio and California for nearly 10 years, so it’s ridiculous when Republicans say China is going to use the Big Rapids location for spying. 

“They don’t need this location this close by, right? They’re already here,” Ruell said. “What you haven’t heard of is any poor behavior of Gotion since they’ve been operating in America because it hasn’t happened.”

Since Cella’s group has been engaged with the Gotion plant issue, he said the construction timeline has been pushed back. Additionally, Cella said he believes the Gotion and Ford-CATL deals are in peril of not being built.

“I’m convinced that it will continue to slide,” Cella said. “These are not small projects, and they take years to really build out and become operational despite what they will spin out there.”

Concerned about the jobs of community members in Big Rapids, Ruell said another factory in the Big Rapids Industrial Park, Simonds International, is closing, eliminating middle class wage jobs. 

“These are the people who are working their butts off, and they’re barely getting by,” Ruell said. “We need opportunities for middle-class wage jobs in this community, and Gotion has the ability to provide those.”

Ruell said people on both sides of the issue care about the community and America.

“We need to start working for the betterment of our communities,” Ruell said. “There’s a lot more good coming out of this project than there is bad.”