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GOP Lawmakers Sound Alarm Over Chinese Acquisition of US Farmland Near Air Force Base

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Fifty-one House Republicans have written three of the Biden administration’s top cabinet officials in alarm over efforts by a Chinese entity to acquire farmland near a North Dakota air force base.

The transaction in question concerns Fufeng Group, the large producer of food additives in China with links to the Chinese Communist Party. Fufeng recently purchased 370 acres of land in Grand Forks, North Dakota, that is plans to build into a corn mill. The future plant will sit roughly 12 miles away from the Grand Forks Air Force Base, home to sensitive drone, satellite, and surveillance technology.

Such an acquisition is an “alarming development for our national security,” the lawmakers, led by Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.), wrote in the Sept. 26 letter, according to a copy obtained by The Epoch Times. The recipients of the letters were Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Secretary of Treasury Janet Yellen, and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack.

With the air force base’s “exceptional intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities,” they said, the land Fufeng purchased would become “the ideal location to closely monitor and intercept military activity.”

“This CCP-tied entity will have potential advantageous opportunities to perpetrate espionage, including actions and activities carried out under commercial cover or auspices,” they wrote.

Epoch Times Photo
Rep. Scott Franklin (R-Fla.) speaks at a press conference on vaccine mandates for businesses with House Republicans on Capitol Hill in Washington, on Nov. 18, 2021. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Rep. Scott Franklin (R-Fla.), who signed the letter, said he was troubled that the sale could have happened in the first place.

“It’s absurd that a Chinese Communist Party-affiliated company would be allowed to purchase farmland near a sensitive military base,” he told The Epoch Times in an email.

Besides potential national security risks, the lawmakers also saw the sale as problematic from a food security perspective.

As of December 2020, 37.6 million acres of U.S. agricultural lands were foreign-owned, a trend that is set to grow in the next half a decade, the letter noted, citing a 2021 report (pdf) from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The fact that the department is not a permanent member of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), a panel scrutinizing foreign investments for national security concerns, has limited its say on such matters despite its agricultural expertise, the letter stated.

“Our over reliance on Chinese supply chains proved disastrous during the COVID-19 pandemic. We cannot allow the CCP to have control over our food supply,” said Franklin, adding that the “Biden administration must explain what it is doing to prevent our primary adversary from gaining control over our most basic resources.”

The lawmakers also questioned what precedent the land purchase would set. Foreign adversaries could use this as a model to encroach on American security by purchasing farmlands in congressional districts that house military installations, they said.

In Florida’s Miami-Dade county, for example, the Homestead Air Reserve Base is home to the Air Force Reserve Command’s combat-ready 482nd Fighter Wing, and supports operations for the U.S. Coast Guard Maritime Safety and Security Team, as well as the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s air and maritime branch.

“At a time when the United States is engaged in great power competition with China, we must utilize every tool at our disposal to protect and defend the integrity of our military and national security, maintain military dominance, and maximize our global military readiness,” the letter stated.

The corn mill project is currently on hold pending a national security review by CFIUS, which the city said on Sept. 1 might take between 45 and 90 days.

Despite support from city officials over the economic opportunities the proposed plant could bring, there’s considerable pushback from locals who believe the city hasn’t been transparent enough about the project and worry that it hasn’t been vetted properly.

“I don’t want them in our country. For one, I do not want a Chinese communist company here. You’ve got to be smart enough to know that. Water pollution—you name it. There are tons of reasons,” Sheila Spicer, a member of the Concerned Citizens of Fufeng Project in Grand Forks, previously told The Epoch Times. The group currently has about 2,600 members on Facebook.

The Pentagon, the USDA, and the Treasury Department didn’t respond to queries from The Epoch Times by publication time. The Epoch Times has also reached out to the CFIUS about the review’s progress.

Eva Fu

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Eva Fu is a New York-based writer for The Epoch Times focusing on U.S. politics, U.S.-China relations, religious freedom, and human rights. Contact Eva at eva.fu@epochtimes.com



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