America
Concerns as China Buys More Farmland in U.S.
T
Beijing makes purchases surrounding 19 sensitive military installations. BY MATTHEW LYSIAK
he chinese ownership of American farmland — par- ticularly near strategic mili- tary installations — is raising
concerns again that the nation has become vulnerable to espionage and food insecurity from a growing geopo- litical adversary. According to new data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), as of 2023, Chinese investors owned approximately 277,336 acres of agricul- tural land in the United States. In total, the Chinese farmland pur-
chases surround 19 of the most sensi- tive military installations in the coun- try, including: Dugway Proving Ground in Utah,
which specializes in military equip- ment and biological and chemical defense systems; Whiteman Air Force Base, a B-2 Spir- it Stealth Bomber site in Missouri that
holds the nation’s Nuclear Command, Control, and Communication system; Fort Bragg in North Carolina, the
most signifi cant military post in the United States by population and home of the U.S. Army’s Airborne and Special Operations Forces, is within a 30-mile radius of Chinese-owned farmland. In 2023, a Chinese-owned compa-
ny’s land purchase in North Dakota raised concerns from the nearby Grand Forks Air Force Base, with an assis- tant secretary of the Air Force warning that the “project presents a signifi cant threat to national security.” The letter from Andrew P. Hunter
said the project raised “near- and long- term risks of signifi cant impacts to our operations in the area.” Experts fear the problem is sig-
nifi cantly worse than previously sus- pected, with Chinese-owned farmland having been underreported by “at least hundreds of thousands of acres,” according to Bryan Burack, a senior policy adviser on China and the Indo- Pacifi c for The Heritage Foundation’s Asian Studies Center. “That number is way, way, way low,
Chinese-Owned Farmland in America
and has been understated by at least 50%,” said Burack, who claimed lax enforcement of current regulations has led to many foreign property owners evading public disclosure. The Agriculture Foreign Invest-
ment Disclosure Act (AFIDA) of 1978 requires foreign investors to report their ownership of agricultural land to the government, and for authorities to publish annual reports to Congress on foreign ownership of agricultural land within the United States. However, the regulation is rarely
enforced, which has led to widespread evasion. Burack points to a massive land pur-
chase in Oregon by a Chinese national that had been concealed from the pub- lic until recently. “We are talking about the second-
largest foreign owner, a Chinese national who owned hundreds of thou- sands of acres in Oregon, being unre- ported until a year ago, and that was only discovered by happenstance,” he told Newsmax. Confusion about Chinese land own-
ership is, in part, caused by China’s authoritarian government. On the record, Beijing does not
directly own a single acre of U.S. land. Under communism, individuals
cannot own land. Instead, all land is considered state-owned or owned by rural collectives. Citizens can only hold “land-use rights” for a specifi ed period. As a result, it is suspected that indi-
vidual land purchases made by out- side investors in the U.S. are being conducted by proxy on behalf of Chi- nese authorities. American farmers say that foreign investments have contributed to rising land prices, making it more diffi cult for farmers — especially small and midsize farms — to purchase or lease land. A report from the American Farm-
12 NEWSMAX | APRIL 2025
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