Letter to the Editor: Be wary of growing Chinese land ownership
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From the White House down, Communist China is infiltrating and influencing lawmakers, and most concerning is China buying up U.S. farmland.
From 2012-2020, the value of land owned by Chinese investors grew by 20 times. These Chinese investors are controlled by the Chinese Communist Party which is increasingly hostile to the U.S., threatening to invade Taiwan, sending spy balloons over America, cyber attacks, intellectual property theft, etc.
As Biden calls China a "Friendly Competitor," China openly admits the U.S. is an adversary. Thus, when China buys our farmland, it is a threat to our national security. China is currently buying farmland near U.S. military installations, where they can spy on our aircraft.
Also, if China continues buying up our farms, they could cut off production from these farms in the future. Considering world events today, there could be a future food shortage. We need to carefully monitor our food supply.
China is playing a long term land control strategy.
* In 1989, Chinese chemical company, Sinochem bought U.S. owned Agri-chemicals, 11,263 acres of Florida land, including Fort Meade chemical plant.
* In 2012, a company owned by two Chinese nationals purchased several American wind farms, four of them, within U.S. Navy airspace, in our northwest.
-- In 2013, China bought Smithfield Farms, the world's largest pork producer. China now controls much of the U.S. pork supply and 384,000 acres of American farmland.
* In 2015, a Chinese real estate tycoon, Sun Guangxin, began acquiring land, in Texas, to develop a wind farm, with 140,000 acres, in Val Verde, 30 miles from Laughlin Air Force base.
* In 2022, Chinese Food Company Fufeng Group purchased hundreds of acres, in North Dakota to build a milling plant, 12 miles from Grand Forks Air Force base, the backbone of the military's global communication network.
We allow China to buy here but they won't allow us to buy there. Yet, we let China buy here with little oversight.
A little-known 1978 law, "The Agricultural Disclosure Act," requires buyers to report their purchases, which is rarely enforced. The U.S.D.A. doesn't check for accuracy and the last audit was in 1989. An investigation found 3.1 million acres of American land with no owner listed. Thus, we don't know the total extent of Chinese-owned American farmland.
I'll write more on this subject later.
Steve Wolverton
Parkersburg