Cars Should Be 100 Percent Free of the CCP

Commentary

The risk that China’s internet-connected cars could invade U.S. markets and create security vulnerabilities is well-known on both sides of the aisle.

Bipartisan legislation is under consideration to codify an existing ban on such vehicles in the United States, in part because of surveillance risks. Although proposed legislation would ban Chinese safety parts, it would not ban other imports from China, including transmissions and steering columns.

Aren’t steering and brakes just as important for passenger safety? And doesn’t empowering China with tens of billions of dollars in annual auto parts purchases endanger U.S. national security?

Such purchases not only empower America’s adversary, but also make America dependent on that adversary. To the extent that the U.S. auto industry becomes dependent on China for parts, Beijing can at any time cut us off, bringing many U.S. assembly lines to a halt. That would pummel the U.S. economy and hurt jobs.

In 2025, China’s auto parts exports rose by 2.4 percent to $95 billion. During the first quarter of 2026, they grew even faster, at 3.7 percent. The country’s balance of trade in auto parts is improving because of its strategy of import substitution and rapidly improving industrial and technological supply chains. China’s impressive balance of trade gives it the foreign exchange to purchase auto parts companies in the United States and elsewhere, which facilitates its technology transfers back to China and the competitiveness of its own auto and defense industries.

Of approximately 10,000 auto parts suppliers in the United States, Chinese companies have ownership stakes in about 5 percent, including makers of transmissions, steering columns, airbags, and auto glass. Although only one Chinese company was among the top 100 auto parts suppliers in 2012, there were 15 in the top 100 by 2024.

China’s biggest auto parts companies often have U.S. federal and state government-subsidized factories in the United States. They supply the top U.S. car companies, purchase U.S. parts suppliers, and export auto technologies back to China. Many of the deals were approved by a too lenient U.S. Treasury-led committee that reviews foreign acquisitions for national security implications.

Fuyao, headquartered in Fujian Province, China, supplies auto glass to General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis (Chrysler). A Chinese conglomerate controls Nexteer, which makes drivelines and steering systems for America’s top carmakers. A subsidiary of AVIC, a leading Chinese defense contractor, acquired majority control of Henniges Automotive and its key anti-vibration technologies in 2015. The technology had applications, and the sale was linked to a sitting U.S. vice president’s son.

Wanxiang Group, which allegedly has ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), has been described as one of China’s largest auto parts manufacturers. Its subsidiary Wanxiang America settled for $53 million in December for allegedly misclassifying imports from China over five years.

“Although it was aware of [an] antidumping duty order, Wanxiang falsely classified its imported wheel hub assemblies and failed to disclose that those importations were covered by the antidumping duty order,” the U.S. Justice Department said.

Dumping is the sale of goods at below-market prices to defeat competition and later raise prices. Wanxiang’s acquisitions in the United States include the purchase of assets from bankrupt U.S. companies relevant to electric vehicle (EV) technologies, including the 2013 purchase of A123 battery assets and the 2014 purchase of Fisker Automotive assets.

Wanxiang changed Fisker’s name to Karma Automotive, which describes itself as an American car company because it is manufactured in California. The car has a connected vehicle system, which raises security concerns, given the links to China. Both A123 and Fisker received subsidies and loans from federal and state programs in excess of what Wanxiang paid for their assets.

CATL is a Chinese company that builds almost 40 percent of the world’s EV batteries and leads the world in battery tech. CATL is licensing its lithium iron phosphate battery chemistry to Ford for both EVs and utility energy storage.

The batteries will be produced at Ford’s new Michigan plant, which is planned to open within months. The plant will cost about $3 billion, given Ford’s EV losses, which it is trying to recoup by retooling its battery business for industrial, residential, and data center energy storage. CATL will send Chinese engineers to help train Ford employees who operate the technology.

Although CATL argues that no government holds a “golden share” in the company, the CCP controls almost all business and other elites in China. In 2023, then-Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) noted that the CATL-enabled plant would deepen the United States’ dependence on China for battery technology.

The infiltration of Chinese parts extends to iconic American brands. The Mustang GT has a Chinese manual transmission. Some General Motors cars have almost 20 percent Chinese-made parts.

Although some argue that Chinese parts lack quality, the rise of the Chinese auto parts export industry is proof in the pudding that they are globally competitive. This includes aftermarket racing parts that cost less than half the price of their competitors and have been used to win races.

China’s auto parts manufacturers in the United States are in addition to China’s Geely and BYD, which build entire vehicles in the United States. BYD builds electric buses and Geely gets involved in the U.S. and European auto industries by purchasing equity stakes in other brand names. All of this is useful not only for the expansion of parts exports from China, but also for the acquisition or theft of U.S. automotive technologies for operations in China aimed at eventually outcompeting the entire U.S. auto industry.

Geely has major stakes in Volvo and Polestar, both of which are assembled at a South Carolina factory. Volvo’s CEO has said the plant’s massive excess capacity could be put to work making Chinese cars.

Geely also owns luxury auto brands, including a major stake in Lotus, and significant stakes in Mercedes-Benz and Aston Martin. In 2023, Geely increased its equity in Aston Martin to 17 percent, through which it gained a non-executive director seat on the company’s board, plus an observer. These seats will help Geely influence the future direction of the company, including through potentially pro-China auto parts import and technology export policies.

“When Geely embarked on its foreign acquisition strategy, it benefited from the Chinese government policy that encouraged foreign direct investment,” according to two international business researchers writing in 2024.

“The government saw this as a path to acquire technological know-how, management know-how and other core competencies that Chinese firms lacked.”

Local communities are starting to oppose China’s building of plants in the United States. In 2023, a Chinese company called Gotion obtained $536 million in Illinois state subsidies to build a $2 billion battery plant. The plant started production in 2025. Significant numbers of locals oppose the plant, but it has not yet shut down. Locals in Michigan also opposed Gotion and were successful in keeping its plant out of the state.

China’s ownership stakes in U.S. companies and imports of Chinese auto parts pose a risk to the U.S. economy because they are controlled by the CCP. The more auto parts the United States imports from China, the more the United States depends on China and the more leverage the regime in Beijing has in impeding the flow of key parts to the United States, for example, during a war over Taiwan or to exert trade pressure. The CCP has already done this to the United States with rare-earth elements, which has shut down assembly lines.

The solution will not be easy, given the CCP’s control of the world’s second-largest economy and what is arguably its second-most-powerful military. The U.S. government and allies should begin by making greater efforts to reduce China’s global exports, including auto parts. This will be difficult, as most countries are more concerned with getting imports as cheaply as possible than with the long-term effects on geopolitics.

In the long run, the only sustainable solution to the CCP threat is to democratize China, which would remove the danger from overreliance on its exports and much else.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.