China EV Battery Giants’ Supply Chains Full Of ‘Forced Labor’, Says House CCP Committee

The House Select Committee on the CCP is now chaired by Congressman John Moolenaar (R-MI-2). He replaced outgoing Congressman Mike Gallagher (R-WI). Moolenaar sent two separate letters about the Committee’s findings on CATL and Gotion, including aerial footage of factory whereabouts and organizational charts, to Robert Silvers, Under Secretary for Strategy, Policy, and Plans at DHS. Both letters were signed by Homeland Security Chairman Rep. Mark Green (R-TN-7), Rep. Darin Lahood (R-IL-16), Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-FL-26) and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL).

Full Gotion letter and CATL letter by Moolenaar, et. al.

Judging by the corporate organizational charts in the letters, CATL sources lithium carbonate and other raw materials from three companies majority owned by another company called Ganfeng Lithium. That company is 65% owned by Genfeng Zhonghai Mining, which is 35% owned by another company called Nonghua Intelligent Agriculture. And from there you get the small connection to XPCC, which seems to suggest in the chart a roughly 6% stake in that company that ultimately feeds the CATL raw materials chain.

For Gotion, their chart shows that they source artificial graphite anodes from a company called BTR. BTR gets lithium ion, a key material for making EV batteries, from a company called  Xinjiang Tianhongji New Lithium Battery Co. That company supposedly has partnerships with XPCC.  

The letter states that Tianhongi is set up in the Shihezi Economic and Technological Development Zone in Xinjiang, an area administered by the XPCC “to foster high-tech enterprise growth” and is located in the same region as a Uyghur detention center controlled by the XPCC’s 152nd Regiment.

In both of the 9-page letters, Homeland was requested to put the companies on the forced labor list. If they chose not to, Homeland was asked for a briefing on that decision.  

This could become a hot issue in the months ahead, with ramifications for the EV supply chain.  

On May 14, the Biden administration imposed tariffs on CATL and Gotion batteries, among other companies. However, those two companies are largely keen on making batteries for the U.S. auto market, close to their domestic auto partners. How this shakes out going forward depends on Homeland’s decision. And whether or not the connections laid out by the Select Committee are valid, and deemed worthy of adding CATL and Gotion to the UFLPA Entity list. No timeline has been given for this decision.