American Factory is a Frightening Look at a Chinese Communist Conglomerate
There’s a scene in American Factory that showcases the pre-downfall of Fuyao Glass America Inc. in which an american delegation goes to the Fuyao headquarters in China. At around 50 minutes or so, we see The Fuyao Workers Union (& communist party headquarters). There, Shimeng, the chairman of Fuyao Workers Union (& first secretary of Fuyao Communist Party committee, also brother-in-law to Chairman Cao Dewang) presents and lauds the 5 leaders of the People’s Republic of China, from Mao Zedong to Xi Jinping, like they are their Gods. Problem #1 arises in this supposedly “all-american” division of Fuyao Glass, a company that bought a dead GM Motors Plant in hopes to get the citizens of Dayton, Ohio back to work. We soon realize that the dream of getting these people back to work is just a pipe-dream, as Fuyao doesn’t care about the safety of their employees and want to mass-produce, exactly like China is doing. This is where American Factory becomes much more than a cinéma-vérité esque documentary on Fuyao bringing an industrial town back to the dead and actually becomes something quite frightening.
It’s interesting to see that the film is produced by the Obamas, whom, according to film critic Armond White, Netflix has become a propaganda machine for the ex-president (and went on Tucker Carlson Tonight to talk about it, mind you). I don’t see it, and maybe that’s because I never really did care for Obama since he wasn’t my president and it has zero effect on my own ever-changing, ever-flowing political ideologies if he produced it or not (also, I’m not an American lol), but, as someone who didn’t really know what to expect when I pressed play and found its first half-hour quite ordinary and dull, I was genuinely surprised at how much I found it inherently frightening to see how controlling Cao Dewang is in his company and how they don’t give a rat’s ass about their workers.
The movie [actually] begins during the communist HQ sequence in which you see the true face of Fuyao — even if they want to be “American” and appease to the workers of Dayton, Ohio, they will soon sack the Americans who are part of Fuyao Glass America’s high-placed individuals and take-over the company to force mass-production and pitiful work conditions, just like in China: Quantity vs. Quality. Seeing how much of a despicable of an individual Cao Dewang is is American Factory’s greatest achievement — slowly showing the promising rise of the company during its mediocre first half-hour prepares the audience for what’s to come. You might even think positively of the company, as they resurrected an industrial company back from the literal dead, until you see Cao’s hidden communist agenda taking over and making an American Factory un-American. I was completely gobsmacked during its last sequence, when the now CHINESE head of Fuyao Glass America Inc. gangs-up and talks behind the workers’ back in Chinese (so they don’t understand what they’re saying), hoping that they’ll fire employees before the end of June. Key word here is HOPING! Seeing the film from the AMERICAN point of view really puts in perspective how truly despicable the company is. The Americans don’t work like the Chinese, it’s a given. But the Chinese don’t care about that, they want to mass-produce, and leave their workers to perform grueling, almost abusive hours and get paid pennies in unsafe conditions.
American Factory’s most interesting moments come when Chinese Communism takes over Ohio and Cao Dewang wants to control, with his Chinese colleagues, an American branch of a Chinese company. It’s one of the most interesting documentaries I’ve seen all year, solely due to its deconstruction of the American Dream by a greedy, Chinese communist conglomerate. It’s one of the most disturbing films of the year, one to see on the big screen (and not at home).
✯✯✯✯
