Culture clash at China billionaire's Ohio plant

Moraine, Ohio

WHEN a giant Chinese glassmaker arrived here in 2014 and began spending what would become more than a half-billion dollars to fix up an abandoned General Motors plant, it seemed like a tale from opposite land: the Chinese are supposedly stealing US jobs - as no less an authority than US President Donald Trump has pointed out.

But now the Chinese were suddenly creating them. More than 1,500 jobs, in fact. The Chinese company, Fuyao Glass Industry Group, decided that the money was worth spending in this Dayton suburb to be close to its key customers, the big US-based carmakers that buy millions of windshields each year.

And it was not alone. From 2000 to the first quarter of this year, the Chinese invested almost US$120 billion in the United States, according to the Rhodium Group, which tracks these flows. Nearly half that amount has come since early 2016, making China one of this country's…