This happen to be a well-reported news on the Chinese internet where I was able to find more details. And the author's own claims are dubious and sketchy. It was never a three way deal, he may have deals with a Chinese company that owns share. That maybe why he said it's a threeway deal, but it's two two-way deals. He never made any deal with Chinese officials, but another Chinese business owner who made the deal with the government. The fact he didn't say is that the company was in debt and bankrupted, whose employees are still trying to get paid for their work.
Another claim he make is that the local government did fulfill their monetary investment. The author said the money that the local government gave was not 'nearly enough', which is impossibly large tax-payer money, to build streamlined car production, but both parties agree to the deal in the beginning, it was the expectation. And the investor would of course, expect the invested to deliver the said product with said investment, which, as the author said, didn't happen.
What's more. There is an whisleblower within the company who work in the accounting department shared with the public on open internet months ago that the non-investing shareholders of the company who didn't put in any money, instead intellectual properties, take mortgage out of their shares, which would be unacceptable in most investment scenario because unless the patents are sold, it's outright stealing from the investing shareholder who put in actual money especially so when the final product weren't made and sold. The accountant told the public that those patents are bought with 2.2 million US dollar but were valued as 100 million, and 'technologies' that were included in the valuation are yet to be perfected, that can't be used in production.
This rant piece is nothing more than a shameful attempt to exploit American sentiment on Chinese 'property theft' trying to sway an on-going court judgement to the author's private financial interest.
If there are any wrong-doings should be left with the court to decide, but there are enough ground for an investigation to be launched, or at least, for the investor to be angry. If the author actually ran an successful operation, I would feel sorry for him, the evaluation issues won't be a problem, but that simply wasn't the case. It is a catastrophic waste of public money for a failed venture of the author and his partners.
I can not attest to if the author is making those claims unaware of those problems that he himself is also cheated by the other party, which is the Chinese company who mortgaged their shares and actually owns the patents. That company bought the company the author originally founded in the US, leading the private Chinese companies to own the author's patents.
I'd say the Chinese government is the fool in this scenario.