Republican Paul Junge owns stock in company with ties to Chinese military
Junge has attacked his Democratic opponent for supposedly being soft on China.
Paul Junge, the Republican congressional candidate in Michigan’s eighth district, has up to $50,000 invested in a company that has been scrutinized for doing business with China.
Junge is running against Democratic state Sen. Kristen McDonald Rivet. A poll from August showed Junge leading by one percentage point.
According to financial disclosures filed in August, Junge has between $15,001 and $50,000 invested in Nvidia, an American manufacturer of semiconductor chips. This is up from March when Junge reported owning between $1,001 and $15,000 of the company’s stock.
In 2022, the U.S. government banned Nvidia from exporting advanced chips to China, fearing the technology could enhance China’s military capabilities. In response, Nvidia developed lower-grade semiconductor chips that could be exported without violating the new restrictions.
U.S. officials are concerned, however, that these lower-grade chips still pose a national security threat. Nvidia has been accused of creating a loophole to continue doing business with China. In April, the South China Morning post reported that Nvidia chips had been used to develop hypersonic missiles in China.
A New York Times investigation in August revealed that Nvidia sold its supposedly lower-grade chips to a firm with links to the Chinese military.
Junge has attacked McDonald Rivet for supposedly being soft on China. A Junge campaign ad claims McDonald Rivet “sent nearly $200 million tax dollars to a Chinese company tied to the communist party.”
This claim stems from a vote McDonald Rivet cast in the state Senate allowing public funds to go towards the construction of an electric vehicle battery plant near Big Rapids, MI. The plant will be operated by Gotion, a battery maker with a Chinese parent company.
Gotion has stated that China and the Chinese Communist Party have no control or influence over the company. Furthermore, Gotion’s largest stakeholder is based in Germany.
At Gotion’s request, the company was reviewed by the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), a regulatory body that assess the security risks of foreign investments. CFIUS determined that Gotion posed no threat to national security.
The plant is expected to provide more than 2,300 jobs.
A Junge campaign spokesperson did not immediately respond to questions for this story.
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