Former CIA Director Leon Panetta warned lawmakers on Tuesday that a proposed Michigan electric vehicle plant could be used by the Chinese for espionage.
Panetta said the Chinese government will take advantage of the fact that it operates an EV battery plant in the U.S. The plant is being developed by a subsidiary of the China-based firm Gotion High-Tech.
“I don’t think there’s any question that they’re going to take advantage of that situation,” Panetta told Rep. John Moolenaar (R-MI) during a House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party hearing. “And I think we have to be very vigilant about what the hell is going on. That’s just the way they operate. They’ll establish a manufacturing unit, they’ll establish whatever they can, and then they will use that for their own intelligence purposes. They will use that for their own economic purposes.”
He continued: “They’ll use it to be able to gain the kind of advantages that are counter, frankly, to the interests of the United States. I think it is very important in those situations to make sure that the United States, and that our intelligence capabilities are being used to make sure that we know what they are doing that could hurt the United States.”