Text messages between Gotion Vice President Chuck Thelen and former Green Charter Township Supervisor Jim Chapman confirm Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) hosted a member of the Chinese Communist Party at the governor’s summer residence on Mackinac Island.
Thelen was organizing a visit to Green Charter Township for Gotion High-tech Chairman Zhen Li in mid-2023, according to texts recently made public from a lawsuit involving the company and township.
In an April 2024 Q & A, Thelen was asked if Zhen Li had ever visited Mecosta County (in Michigan) and he answered affirmatively, but went beyond that: “We’ve also met with some higher officials in Lansing. We met some higher officials in another location during the summer time because those officials were on vacation so we went to where they were,” Thelen said.
In the text messages between Thelen and Chapman, Thelen said the “chairman” wanted to visit July 12th or 13th. “I hope to visit the (proposed Gotion) site early afternoon then (Ferris State University) for a short tour and then we have to meet Gretchen (Whitmer) on Mackinac Island,” Thelen wrote. Photographs that circulated throughout the Green Charter Township community on July 11 showed several representatives of Gotion in the area that day. Zhen Li is founder of Gotion High-Tech and Gotion Inc. is the wholly owned U.S. subsidiary. He is a former government employee and participant in the local communist government leadership.
Whitmer gave Gotion $715 million in Michigan taxpayer cash and incentives.
