From Quartz, January 24th, 2016:
The secret history of GM’s Chinese bailout
When US taxpayers footed a $50 billion bill for the bailout of General Motors in 2009, few could have guessed that the biggest of the Detroit “Big Three” (GM, Chrysler, Ford) would go on to import Chinese cars to the United States. Yet just seven years after its publicly-funded and highly-politicized rescue, GM says it will do exactly that: early next year the automaker will begin shipping Chinese-made Buick Envision crossovers across the Pacific for sale at its US dealerships, with a plug-in hybrid version of Cadillac’s CT6 flagship sedan to follow. Anyone who believed that GM’s bailout would create a bulwark against a long-feared flood of Chinese cars might be puzzled to find the very same automaker championing Chinese imports. In fact, this move is just the latest in a pattern that dates back to 2009, when GM received a secretive Chinese “bailout” that appears to have turned America’s largest automaker into a Trojan horse for its Chinese partner.
In his 2011 book American Wheels, Chinese Roads author Michael Dunne explores GM’s profound success in the Chinese market, dating back to the founding of its 1995 “Shanghai GM” partnership with the Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC). He describes the relationship between the two firms as being mutually-beneficial through the early 2000s, but when the 2008 downturn brought GM to the point of bankruptcy the partnership took a troubling turn. Because the US auto task force refused to let GM spend TARP aid on its foreign operations, GM was forced to turn to SAIC for help. The resulting deal would forever alter the delicate balance of power in the Shanghai GM joint venture and drive GM to restructure its entire global strategy around its partnership with SAIC.
A long and very well researched (and cited) article. China did what China does, offer the first "deal" on very favorible terms but now... You owe us a favor and the requests never stop coming. The bribes come along with it but that is just the velvet covering on the iron fist. Don't trust China. China is asshoe.
President Trump is putting a stop to this and China does not like it. They are calling in the favors from their toadies in politics (Biden? Kerry?) and in the media to try to stage a Communist Coup. They have had forty years to teach our children well - the long march through the institutions. Time to pull the wool from our eyes and just say no.
Leave a comment