Chinese investment creating US jobs

Rather than costing jobs, Chinese companies in America are hiring

For Rachel McGaw, an office manager who lives in a Rust Belt town in Illinois, working for a Chinese company has its rewards.

"I enjoy working here. I like my salary, I like my hours. I feel more valued because the company takes me and my feeling and my family into consideration," said the employee at Wanxiang New Energy, the solar division of Wanxiang America Corp.

McGaw is one of thousands of local workers employed at Wanxiang who could otherwise be jobless. The company entered the US market in 1994, the year General Motors started operations in China.

It now has 28 plants, runs in more than 20 US states, and employs more than 18,000. Only about 10 employees are from China, and the rest are local.

Over the years, Wanxiang has acquired many firms on the brink of bankruptcy.

"We saved a lot of jobs," said Ni Pin, president of Wanxiang America.

While Chinese companies were accused of costing US jobs during the 2016 US presidential campaign, the reality is quite different: Chinese companies are opening new plants and hiring people in America.

They now employ more than 140,000 Americans, according to the latest report by the National Committee on US-China Relations (NCUSCR) and Rhodium Group.

Already on a steep growth trajectory for the past five years, Chinese investment in the US jumped to $46 billion last year, a 200 percent increase from the previous record of $15 billion set in 2015, the bilateral investment report showed.

In addition, the report, named New Neighbors 2017, suggested that by the end of 2016, 425 out of 435 congressional districts hosted Chinese-owned companies.

In 2016, Chinese investors deepened their US footprint, according to a separate report released in mid-May by NCUSCR and Rhodium Group.

US coastal states, such as New York and California are still the major beneficiaries of Chinese investment, but South and Midwest states also received significant Chinese investment last year.

In New York, the Alexander Hamilton Bridge that crosses the Harlem River has gone through a major widening and rehabilitating project performed by China Construction America (CCA).

The 550-foot-long steel arch main bridge now carries 10 lanes of traffic instead of eight, with its support piers and foundations reinforced and new drainage installed.

CCA started its business in the US in 2000 with only 12 employees and less than $10 million in annual revenue. In 2016, it employed around 2,000 workers, 98 percent of whom are Americans, and its revenue jumped to $2 billion.

In Moraine, Ohio, more than 2,000 people are working at a 470,000-square-meter glass fabrication factory housed in GM's former assembly plant. The plant used to employ thousands of people making SUVs and trucks. It was closed in 2008 as a financial crisis wiped out jobs across the industry.

Fuyao is one of the world's largest auto-glass makers and has a 22 percent market share in the US. Its investment in Moraine is the largest Chinese investment in Ohio and the eighth-largest direct foreign investment in the US over the last decade.

Stephen A. Orlins, president of the NCUSCR, got emotional when recalling the factory's grand opening last December.

He said it signaled the rebirth of a community, and at the moment he knew he had glimpsed "the promised land of a constructive US-China relations".

Wanxiang also makes sure that "every cent the company makes in the US will be invested into the local community".

Yang Shilong, Wang Naishui, and Huang Heng contributed to this story provided by Xinhua