East Central Reporter

State Rep. Chris Miller (R-Oakland) joined a discussion with various stakeholders on the controversial proposed Gotion plant in Manteno.

The Gotion controversy in Manteno centers around Gotion Inc., a company associated with the Chinese Communist Party, receiving $8 billion in taxpayer subsidies for building a $2 billion battery factory.

The discussion included Wirepoints founder Mark Glennon and other Illinois Freedom Caucus Representatives State Rep. Blaine Wilhour (R-Beecher City) and State Rep. Brad Halbrook (R-Shelbyville).

“There’s more questions than there are answers,” Miller said. “But I think one of the questions that needs to be answered is, are we for sale to the Chinese Communist Party? That’s that’s the overarching question.”

“We’ve seen this over and over again. They’re throwing millions and possibly billions of dollars at all of these things that have to do with EVs and windmills and batteries and solar and all this stuff. And so that’s one thing needs to be answered. Another thing is that every battery in this Chinese Communist battery plant goes to feeding this (narrative) that we’re dealing with that we’re having a climate crisis It is a total scam and all this narrative does is feed that idea.”

“Every battery that comes out of that plant will help the Chinese Communist Party conquer the world. And it keeps kids in a slave labor camps mining these rare earth minerals that we all know are extremely toxic. When the landfills won’t take this stuff because it’s so toxic, you know that that’s problematic. Then another, the bonus to all of this is that my prediction is that this plant will follow the graveyard of all these batteries and electric buses and all that stuff that will follow them to the graveyard of bankruptcy within five years is my prediction.”

The Illinois Freedom Caucus, along with local residents and supporters, is set to host a press conference on Oct. 2 to voice opposition to the battery plant planned for Manteno.

This event aims to address concerns raised by Manteno residents, including zoning regulations, property taxes, healthcare access, and potential national security implications of the Chinese company’s generous subsidies through federal tax credits, amid increasing tensions between the U.S. and China.

The Gotion controversy involves the Chinese company’s plans to receive $8 billion in taxpayer subsidies for a $2 billion battery factory in Manteno, Illinois, has raised concerns among residents and lawmakers, according to Wirepoints.

The citizens of Manteno, along with concerned Michigan residents and a U.S. House committee, are questioning the substantial taxpayer funding granted to a company with ties to the Chinese Communist Party.

The planned Manteno Gotion plant was recently noted in a letter written by U.S. Senator Marco Rubio and U.S. Representative John Moolenaar calling for a Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) review of Gotion, Inc. due to its CCP ties and potential access to green-energy tax breaks.

They expressed concerns about the extent of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) control over Gotion and its impact on critical infrastructure decisions in the U.S., particularly within the state of Illinois.

“The extent of the CCP’s control over Guoxuan (Gotion) is explicitly mentioned in the company’s corporate by-laws, which require the company ‘to carry out Party activities in accordance with the Constitution of the [Chinese Communist Party],’” the letter reads.

“In 2021, Guoxuan High-Tech hosted several company retreats where employees were mandated to recite a pledge of loyalty to the Party, including to ‘fight for communism.’ This is concerning, no less because the Biden Administration itself has described the PRC in its 2022 National Security Strategy as the “only competitor with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to do it,” and that ‘Beijing frequently uses its economic power to coerce countries.’ The CCP’s control over Guoxuan High-Tech is no exception to the Party’s strategy to exert its influence in the United States.”