SC’s Henry McMaster defends a Chinese fiberglass company recruited by Nikki Haley
S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster said a Chinese company that has been under scrutiny by a presidential campaign hasn’t caused trouble since locating in South Carolina near the Army’s Fort Jackson in 2016.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has been critical of former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley’s recruitment of China Jushi to locate in Richland County.
The fiberglass company is located in Columbia’s Pineview Industrial Park and is partially owned by the Chinese government. China Jushi built its plant on 200 acres of Richland County land. It received the land for no charge in exchange for creating 400 jobs at the location.
“As far as anybody knows, they’ve caused no trouble and pose no threat,” McMaster said to reporters Thursday during a media availability. “But again, we got companies from all over the world people coming in South Carolina from all over the place, but this issue we’ve been aware of the potential threat. We’ve been very careful.”
Even though the company has not had any security concerns, South Carolina’s Department of Health and Environmental Control has fined China Jushi $460,000 over a series of significant environmental violations.
The DeSantis and Haley campaigns, and super PACs supporting them, have been going back and forth, particularly over their foreign policy stances, in recent weeks as the two battle to be the top Trump alternative for the GOP nomination.
The issue over whether companies with ties to China are allowed to locate around the country has become a point of contention recently as both Republican presidential hopefuls want to show they are tough on the growing economic power and potential military adversary.
“She welcomed them into South Carolina, gave him land near a military base, wrote the Chinese ambassador a love letter saying what a great friend they were,” DeSantis said during Wednesday’s debate. “That was like their No. 1 way to to do economic development. In Florida, I banned China from buying land in this state.”
Haley shot back when she pointed out DeSantis chaired a board that encouraged China investment in Florida, said Chinese manufacturers are operating in the Sunshine state, and how the state of Florida recently removed references to China from an agency website.
“Yes, I brought a fiberglass company 10 years ago to South Carolina, but Ron, you are the chair of your economic development agency that as of last week, said Florida is the ideal place for Chinese businesses,” Haley said.
McMaster said at least 42 companies in South Carolina have some sort of Chinese ownership relationship.
Among the companies with ties to China that are operating in South Carolina is Volvo, which has a headquarters in China.
As tensions grow between the U.S. and China, there is growing wariness over whether businesses with Chinese ties should be allowed to operate in the U.S. South Carolina’s state Senate passed legislation earlier this year to bar citizens of “foreign adversary” nations from buying property in the state, the Associated Press reported. The bill is now in the House.
“When this became an issue, and it’s an issue in the Legislature as well, there will be bills pending about this kind of ownership,” McMaster said. “But we started vetting all these companies to see if they were owned by the Communist party or had any executives members of the Communist Party and the FBI participate, SLED and the US State Department we just want to be careful. It’s just part of our vetting of companies who come here.”
McMaster says the state Department of Commerce also has helped with vetting companies, and those that ultimately come to South Carolina “have been good citizens.”
