Report: U.S. Struggles to Address Growing Chinese Land Ownership Threat

According to a Heritage Foundation report published Thursday, the United States government does not adequately address the threat posed from the growing Chinese ownership in American land.

According to the report, the federal government is woefully unprepared to track Chinese-owned property in the United States, despite the grave threat that these Chinese Communist Party affiliated entities can pose to vital U.S. Infrastructure. The report urges federal and state leaders, including the president and governors to take action. This includes increasing transparency and conducting a more critical review of land purchases.

The study was written by Bryan Burack, senior policy advisor at the Heritage Foundation, who is also the author.

A report states that the federal government does not have a system to monitor Chinese real estate ownership in the United States. This is because state and local governments are responsible for overseeing ownership. The U.S. Government does not have a clear picture of China’s land holdings.

Burack stated that the United States should not ignore land and real-estate transactions by our main adversary but rather watch them.

The DCNF has reported on the land purchases by Chinese companies in the U.S., for example, the parent of battery manufacturer Gotion, who plans to build factories near military bases in Illinois and Michigan, took part in Chinese Communist Party programs aimed at acquiring technology for China’s army. The DCNF exposed CCP links of companies that were trying to establish themselves near military bases in Kansas.

DCNF reported exclusively that Smithfield Foods, America’s largest pork producer is owned by a Chinese company. This company exported massive quantities to its China-based “sister company” as it stocked up food for the Chinese army.

According to the report, Chinese companies have spent more than $100 billion on acquiring American businesses since 2010. Many of these businesses also own real estate in the United States. The National Association of Realtors has confirmed that China will be the largest foreign buyer of American property in 2020.

The Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act provides some insight on the amount of land purchased by foreign entities. According to the latest AFIDA report, Chinese investors only own a small portion of privately owned agricultural land in China. They held 346,915 acre, or about one percent of all foreign-owned acres, by December 31, 2022.

The report revealed that the area of Chinese-owned land has grown five-fold from 2011 to 2021.

This is a worrying trend because the Chinese government made many, publicized attempts to gain entry to key U.S. locations.

The report highlights, for example, China’s attempts to equip a pagoda in Washington, D.C. with signal collection technology, an attempt made by a Chinese billionaire, to build a project to develop wind near Laughlin Air Force Base, in Val Verde County, Texas, as well as an attempt made by a Chinese agribusiness, to develop a project to produce cornmeal just 12 miles away from Grand Forks Air Base.

The report states that “in both the Val Verde case and Grand Forks case, existing federal government mechanisms proved manifestly ineffective to deal with threats which were clearly perceived by Americans living nearby – as well as, apparently, the Defense Department itself.” The report states that “China’s threat against U.S. Military Infrastructure continues to grow.”

The Heritage Foundation recommended that the federal government and the state legislators enact legislation to better prepare the country for the growing threat.

The report concluded that “the threat posed by Chinese companies purchasing real estate in America and using it for malign purposes is real.” The report concludes that “China is the United States’ biggest national security threat, and it has a long history of threatening real estate and agricultural lands.”