In yet another front where the Biden administration is blithely ignoring US national security, a bombshell Post report last week revealed that Chinese entities have bought up land around 19 military bases nationwide.
The danger’s obvious: Beijing can easily use surveillance tech, like drones or trackers, to monitor movements in and out of bases, among other spying.
And that’s plainly the intent: Sun Guangxin, a former People’s Liberation Army general with close ties to the Chinese Communist Party, owns about 40% of Chinese-owned US land; over a few years starting in 2016, notably, he bought up $110 million worth of land next to Laughlin Air Force Base in Val Verde County, Texas.
His plan to run a “wind farm” there was foiled by the Lone Star Infrastructure Act, blocking businesses associated with “hostile nations” from accessing the state’s energy grid.
Texas isn’t the only state fighting back: In 2023, 15 states passed laws regulating foreign ownership of US land; 20 more states are looking to do the same this year.
But why isn’t the Biden administration doing more?
Yes, President Biden last month signed an executive order forcing a Chinese-owned Bitcoin mining firm to sell land near F.E. Warren base, which houses intercontinental ballistic missiles, in Cheyenne, Wyo.
He could do the same to kick CCP-connected owners off all farmland near military sites.
Several lawmakers have tried to get ahead of this problem on a national level.
Last year, Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.) reintroduced a bill to require the prez to prohibit entities associated with China’s government from buying US agricultural land (which is virtually all the sites in question; Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) and Sens. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Mike Rounds (R-SD) have introduced legislation to block China, Russia, Iran and North Korea from doing so.
But all these bills are dying in committee.
Congress should pass a law ASAP; in the meantime, Biden needs to start rolling back the CCP’s slow, methodical invasion.