For years, Chevrolet has advertised its cars and
trucks as the very essence of the American way of life, and its latest
multimillion-dollar blitz of TV ads tells us that the newest Chevrolets are
nothing less than “an American revolution.”
Well you can stick a feather in my cap and call it
macaroni, but wrapping your corporation in the red, white, and blue
doesn’t make it a true blue Yankee-doodle dandy. Check out
Chevy’s Equinox, for example, a new SUV that’s a central
feature of the company’s current star-spangled ad campaign. Chevrolet
doesn’t want you to know it, but there’s not much that’s
American in the Equinox: it’s assembled in Canada, its transmission
is made in Japan, and — well, here’s something revolutionary
— its engine is made in China!
While General Motors has been shutting down its auto
plants in Michigan, Maryland, and Ohio, it has been quietly investing more
than a billion dollars in joint ventures with China’s ruling elite to
make cars and car parts there for export back here to the United States.
The Equinox engine, made in China through GM’s 50-50 joint venture
with the Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp., is produced by the lowest-paid
autoworkers in the world. To fatten its profits, GM has entered into this
diabolical partnership with a brutal regime that dictatorially represses
workers’ wages, outlaws independent labor unions, and routinely
imprisons those who complain, protest, or organize.
GM seems shy about this Chinese connection, however,
for it doesn’t bother to mention Equinox’s Chinese engine in
any of its extensive promotional material. Also, if you check under the
hood, you won’t find a made-in-China sticker on the engine itself.
GM’s Equinox isn’t revolutionary.
It’s revolting.
This article appears in May 26 – Jun 1, 2005.
