Commentary: Youngkin warned us about China’s Trojan horse. He was right (2024)

In January 2023, Virginia’s news media reported that Gov. Glenn Youngkin withdrew the commonwealth from being considered as the landing ground for a new CATL-Ford battery factory. CATL, also known as Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Limited, is a Chinese battery manufacturer that would have partnered with Ford to produce batteries for the F-150 Lightning series in Pittsylvania County. Following the announcement that Virginia had terminated negotiations with CATL, Youngkin’s decision was widely panned by Democratic legislators and political journalists.

Since then, however, findings by investigative committees in U.S. Congress and Michigan’s experience with CATL have shown that Youngkin was prescient in his decision to pull Virginia out.

CATL was founded in 2012 by members of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference National Committee, which is an advisory committee that oversees the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) “United Front” system of foreign influence. According to a report from the federal U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, United Front is designed to influence foreign governments and overseas political actors to take positions that are aligned with the CCP’s interests.

When deciding to pull Virginia out of consideration for the CATL facility, Youngkin said, “the technology at the heart of this battery is from Chinese Communist Party-influenced CATL. ... (The project is) an economic arrangement engineered to tap into federal government subsidies paid for with taxpayer money that is going to economically benefit the Chinese Communist Party.”

At that time, Gov. Youngkin was sharply attacked by Democrats in the General Assembly and journalists. “The governor chose to make a splash and on his own disrespect the people of Southside Virginia by ... turn(ing) down 2,500 jobs and a $5 billion investment,” said now-House Speaker Don Scott, D-Portsmouth. “We believe that he put his political and presidential aspirations before the people of Virginia who elected him.”

“It is deeply disappointing that Gov. Youngkin would turn away business investment and jobs from Ford Motor Co. due to political considerations and a new obsession with China. It’s clear that the governor has put his personal politics above jobs for Virginia communities,” said now-Congresswoman Jennifer McClellan.

“To deny jobs because you’re in last place in Republican presidential primaries (is) gubernatorial malpractice,” said now-Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax.

Richmond Times-Dispatch political columnist Jeff Schapiro likened the Governor’s decision to “a fit of Sinophobia” and “an attempt to burnish his anti-communist credentials.”

Since Gov. Youngkin’s decision nearly a year-and-a-half ago, Ford stopped work on its CATL-partnered factory, which landed in Michigan with public subsidies amounting to nearly $700,000 per job created. Ford then renewed the plans, but with 800 fewer jobs and an average wage of less than $46,000. Congress also announced two separate, bipartisan investigations into Ford’s partnership with CATL, and Duke Energy disconnected CATL-produced batteries from Camp Lejeune over concerns of cybersecurity vulnerabilities from hackers associated with the Chinese government. Finally, in December 2023, Congress passed an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that prohibited the Defense Department from procuring CATL batteries, along with five other companies with concerning Chinese Communist Party ties.

While these developments happened after Gov. Youngkin withdrew Virginia from the CATL factory decision, red flags concerning CATL have been public for some time. The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission report was published in 2018, and reporting on CATL’s labor abuses in Xinjiang and extremely close relationship with the Chinese government began in 2022. Had Youngkin’s critics taken the time to do their own research rather than giving knee-jerk criticism, it is likely they would have arrived at the same conclusion.

When Gov. Youngkin decided to withdraw Virginia from being considered as the landing ground for the Ford-CATL factory, he did so with Virginia’s best interests and the United States’ national security in mind. While it took some time for the truth behind CATL to become more widely known, it is reassuring to see the governor, Congress and the Biden administration on the same page regarding a corporate pawn of the Chinese Communist Party.