Picture this: a sprawling industrial beast in the guts of Wuhan, Hubei, spitting out cars and trucks like some overworked chef slinging greasy plates in a back-alley diner. That’s Dongfeng Motor Corporation for you – a state-owned titan that’s been grinding away since 1969. They’ve got their fingers in pies with Honda, Nissan, and Stellantis, and on paper, it’s all shiny and impressive. But peel back the polished PR bullshit, and you’ll find a festering mess of corruption, human rights atrocities, and enough fuck-ups to make your head spin. This ain’t a corporate fairy tale; this is Dongfeng Motor, raw and unfiltered, served up with a side of shit.
The Rot at the Top
Let’s kick off with the bigwigs, the suits who run the show. Back in 2015, Zhu Fushou, Dongfeng’s general manager, got nabbed by China’s anti-corruption squad for what they politely call “serious violations of party discipline”. Translation? The bastard was crooked as a dog’s hind leg. And he wasn’t flying solo – Ren Yong and Fan Zhong, two other top brass, got dragged into the same shitstorm. This isn’t a case of one bad egg; it’s a whole damn carton gone rotten. When the execs are neck-deep in graft, you know the stench seeps into every corner of the operation.
Blood on the Supply Chain
But that’s just the appetiser. The real gut-punch comes when you look at Dongfeng’s supply chain – a grim trail leading straight to Xinjiang, where forced labour isn’t just a rumour, it’s a fucking reality. Human Rights Watch and others have clocked automakers like Dongfeng sourcing materials, like aluminium, from places where Uyghurs and other minorities are worked to the bone under threat. You buy Dongfeng, you might as well be driving a monument to misery. It’s not engineering; it’s exploitation with a shiny paint job.
Thieving Bastards
Then there’s the tech grab. In 2012, Dongfeng locked horns with SAIC Motor over some juicy bits of LDV Group tech – a British van outfit. SAIC reckoned they owned it fair and square, but Dongfeng? They allegedly ripped it off, reverse-engineering the designs like a kid nicking answers in an exam. The Yufeng van they churned out looked a bit too much like SAIC’s Maxus Datong V80, and the courtroom brawl that followed was a proper slugfest. It’s classic Chinese carmaker playbook – why innovate when you can steal? Consumers get screwed with half-arsed knock-offs, and Dongfeng just shrugs.
Death Traps on Wheels
And the cars themselves? Christ, they’re a liability. In 2018, Dongfeng Honda yanked 130,455 CR-Vs off the road because of dodgy lubricant that could torch the engine or worse. Same year, 72,000 motors got recalled for ignition locks so shite they’d cut out mid-drive. Fast forward to 2023, and they’re planning to haul back 1.19 million cars over a knackered exhaust gas valve. These aren’t “whoops, my bad” glitches – they’re lethal cock-ups that could leave you stranded or dead. But profits keep rolling, so who gives a toss about the punters, eh?
A Marriage Gone to Shit
Don’t get me started on their joint venture with PSA – now part of the failing Stellantis empire. They were supposed to be a match made in automotive heaven, it turned into a bloody car crash. By 2019, sales were in the toilet and – not unlike most things Stellantis touches – losses were piling up, and the fix was brutal: slash thousands of jobs and shutter two plants. It’s a masterclass in screwing the pooch – mismanagement so bad it’d make a drunk bookkeeper blush. Workers got the boot while the execs likely toasted their bonuses.
Cummins: The Dirty Bedfellow
Oh, and let’s not skip Cummins, the American engine mob who’ve been shacked up with Dongfeng for years via Dongfeng Cummins. They pump out engines for Dongfeng’s trucks and buses, raking in the cash while their partner’s drowning in scandal. Corruption, forced labour, safety disasters – Cummins doesn’t seem to give a rat’s arse, long as the cheques clear. It’s a cosy little deal where ethics get stuffed in the glovebox and forgotten. Profit over principles, every damn time.
The Final Low-Down
So here’s Dongfeng Motor, laid bare: a company so caked in shit it’d make a sewer rat gag. Corrupt bosses, enslaved workers, stolen tech, lethal cars, botched ventures, and a Yank partner happy to look the other way. This isn’t just a Chinese clusterfuck – it’s a global disgrace, hitting drivers, workers, and the planet square in the face. If Dongfeng’s misdeeds were a dish, it’d be a rancid, maggot-ridden stew you wouldn’t feed to a stray. Wake up, smell the diesel, and ask yourself: how long do we let these bastards ride roughshod before someone slams on the brakes?
Lee Thompson – Founder, The Cummins Accountability Project
Sources
- Auto News, ET Auto
- Reuters: China investigates Dongfeng Motor official for graft
- Human Rights Watch: Asleep at the Wheel – Car Companies’ Complicity in Forced Labor in China
- Business & Human Rights Resource Centre: Report: Driving Force – Automotive Supply Chains and Forced Labor in the Uyghur Region
- Pulitzer Center: Did Coerced Labor Build Your Car?
- China Intellectual Property Lawyers Network: Domestic auto giants in fracas over foreign technology claims
- China Daily: Dongfeng Honda-built CR-Vs recalled for lubricant issues
- China Daily: China’s Dongfeng Motor to recall over 72,000 cars
- Reuters: China’s Dongfeng Motor plans to recall 1.19 million cars from Dec 30
- Reuters: Exclusive: PSA, Dongfeng to drop two China auto plants, halve workforce – document
- Automotive News Europe: Dongfeng PSA racks up $363 million first-half loss
- Cummins in China | Yale Center for Business and the Environment:
- Cummins Celebrates 40 Years in China | Cummins Inc.