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A ribbon‑cutting and a handful of job ads have turned a once‑cheerful campaign photo op into a full‑blown accountability question. Green New Energy Materials (GNEM) quietly celebrated opening a facility in Lincoln County, North Carolina — yet public job listings for the site require fluency in Mandarin and the company’s parent is tied to Chinese party organizations. Senate candidate Roy Cooper cheered the original deal; now voters and taxpayers deserve plain answers about who really benefits.
Ribbon‑cutting, not full production
The local economic development group marked the GNEM milestone as “two years of preparation,” but a ceremonial ribbon doesn’t prove the factory is at full commercial production. State files show the project was promised as a $140 million investment with 545 jobs, and the performance‑based incentive could reimburse up to about $3.63 million over 12 years — only if the company meets hiring and investment milestones. So far, there’s no public confirmation that those milestones have been met or that any incentive payments have been issued. That’s important, because taxpayers shouldn’t be on the hook until the job promises are real.
Mandarin‑required job postings raise red flags
Even more curious are the job listings for the Denver, N.C. plant. Several posted roles — from electrical engineering to production supervision and logistics — explicitly require English and Mandarin fluency for daily communication. In a rural county where Mandarin speakers are rare, that raises two hard questions: will the company actually hire locally, and why is bilingual fluency needed instead of translation services or bilingual liaisons? If the work truly needs Mandarin, then much of the operation may remain run from overseas. If it doesn’t, why put that barrier in the job ad?
Chinese ownership and party ties matter
Who is behind GNEM?
Public corporate filings tie GNEM to Shenzhen Senior Technology Material and related companies that do business inside China’s strategic battery supply chain. Those same filings and Chinese‑language reports show the parent company has internal party‑building activity and leaders who have held roles in government‑linked bodies. That matters because “party building” and united‑front work are formal channels the Chinese Communist Party uses to shape corporate behavior. North Carolina officials should have vetted these links before approving taxpayer incentives — especially for a technology tied closely to national security and critical supply chains.
Time for transparency — and answers from Roy Cooper
Senate candidate Roy Cooper touted this project as a win for North Carolina families when it was announced. That was the easy part. Now comes the harder task: showing that North Carolinians will actually get the jobs promised, that taxpayer incentives won’t flow before milestones are met, and that sensitive operations won’t be controlled from abroad. GNEM, the North Carolina Commerce Department, the Lincoln Economic Development Association, and yes, Roy Cooper, should explain exactly who has been hired, whether JDIG payments have been issued, and why Mandarin‑only requirements appear in job ads for a plant in rural America. Voters deserve straight talk — not ribbon‑cutting photo ops and vague promises. If Cooper wants a Senate seat, he needs to prove he backed the right deal for North Carolina, not a foreign play dressed up as local economic development.
