Tesla Faces Backlash in China from Viral Video

In 2018, Elon Musk signed an agreement with the Shanghai Municipal Government to open a plant to make Tesla vehicles, making it the first non-Chinese auto company with a solely owned subsidiary in China since the 1990s.  A female Tesla owner climbed on top of a car’s roof at the Tesla booth to protest her car’s brake malfunction at the Shanghai auto show Monday. The booth beefed up its security after the incident. pic.twitter.com/ct7RmF1agM

Now the company is facing a backlash over its electric car business there.  And, experts say, by making use of anti-American public sentiment, the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is making a move against Tesla that is well-known to foreign companies with technologies it covets: To stay in China’s lucrative market, a company must share its tech with Beijing.  “There is little doubt in my mind that the CCP is squeezing the American company through a controlled burst of anti-American xenophobia because of Tesla’s phenomenal success in China, its advanced technology, and its close involvement in U.S. space programs,” said Miles Yu, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute who specializes in U.S. and Chinese military and diplomatic history, and U.S. policy toward China.