The
Chinese
military-linked spy balloon saga seems to have reinforced efforts by American legislators to ban China from purchasing
U.S. farmland
after the surveillance airship
traversed the United States and floated over U.S. military installations.
Chinese nationals, including Chinese state-owned companies and people linked to Beijing’s government, have
increased their efforts to scoop up U.S. farmland and real estate
in recent years, leading to national security concerns, especially when the land has been
seemingly strategically purchased right near key U.S. military bases.
NORTH DAKOTA TOWN REJECTS CHINESE PROJECT NEAR MILITARY BASE AFTER BIDEN ADMIN WON’T ACT
Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL)
tweeted
on Friday that the U.S. should “ban foreign purchase and ownership of American lands by China and file imminent domain to regain American farmlands and properties around military bases.”
China’s surveillance airship was spotted by the U.S. above Alaska’s Aleutian Islands on Jan. 28. The spy balloon then traveled across Alaska into Canada, reached northern Idaho on Jan. 31, then continued its flight over a specialized U.S. military site in
Montana.
The balloon then traveled across the mainland U.S. to the southeastern coast, where a U.S. fighter jet shot it down off the coast of South Carolina.
Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT)
has been among the numerous national and state leaders pushing to ban Chinese government-linked companies and people from purchasing U.S. farmland, with the ban efforts reinvigorated following the Chinese spy balloon saga.
“I’ve been farming my grandparents’ land at the homestead, and I think it’s really important for food security,” Tester
said
on Face the Nation on CBS News on Sunday. “This is a ban against China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran, folks who don’t want to see us exist anymore as a nation. I don’t think they should have any opportunity to try to dictate our food supply.”
Tester said the ban would relate to all Chinese companies “because they’re all connected with the Communist Chinese government anyway.” The senator added, “China wants to do bad things to us. … So let’s take that off the table, both in farmland and in agribusinesses. I think — I think it’d be a mistake, a really a mistake for national security and for food security.”
Tester
teamed up
with Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) in January to introduce “bipartisan legislation aimed at preventing China, Russia, Iran and North Korea from investing in, purchasing, leasing or otherwise acquiring U.S. farmland.” The legislation also called for adding the secretary of agriculture as a standing member of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.
The Chinese spy balloon
traveled close
to Montana’s Malmstrom Air Force Base, one of three U.S. Air Force bases that maintain and operate the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin
called
the U.S. response to the spy balloon an “overreaction” on Wednesday.
The Department of Agriculture’s
data
through the end of 2021 said foreign nationals held an interest in roughly 40 million acres of U.S. agricultural land, which is “3.1 percent of all privately held agricultural land and 1.8 percent of all land in the United States.” China held 383,935 acres, which is “slightly less than 1 percent of foreign-held acres.”
The department
said
in 2018 that “the incorporation of agricultural investment into broader geopolitical objectives is reflected by the prominence” of the Chinese government’s “One Belt One Road” initiative. The Congressional Research Service
said
in December that the Chinese initiative is designed “to expand China’s global economic reach and influence.”
Another
report
from the USDA noted that, in the previous decade, Chinese investment in agriculture and farmland outside its own borders had risen by over 1,000%.
Purchasers from China are also the largest foreign buyers
of U.S. real estate, buying $6.1 billion in U.S. homes from April 2021 to March 2022, which the National Association of Realtors said was up 30% from the prior year.
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Last year, House Republicans repeatedly urged the Biden administration to
investigate the “national security threat” posed by China grabbing up American farmland.
Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) previously
introduced
the Protecting Military Installations and Ranges Act to “restrict any effort” by China, Russia, Iran, or North Korea “to buy U.S. land within 100 miles of a U.S. military installation, or 50 miles from military areas.”
