Spy balloon only a piece of China’s ‘brazen’ actions inside the US
Jerry Dunleavy
The Chinese spy balloon that floated across the continental United States last week is only one piece of Beijing’s “brazen” actions inside the U.S., as China seeks to buy up U.S. farmland and targets Chinese dissidents inside America’s borders.
China’s surveillance airship was allegedly first spotted by the U.S. above Alaska’s Aleutian Islands on Jan. 28. The spy balloon then traveled across Alaska into Canada, reached northern Idaho on Jan. 31, then continued its flight over a specialized U.S. military site in Montana. The balloon then traveled across the mainland U.S. to the southeastern coast, where a U.S. fighter jet shot it down off the coast of South Carolina.
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“China’s brazen disregard for U.S. sovereignty is a destabilizing action that must be addressed,” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) said last week.
The spy balloon certainly isn’t the first such provocative action the Chinese government has taken inside the U.S. in recent years. FBI Director Christopher Wray discussed the “brazen” and complex threat posed by Beijing during a 2022 speech.
“I want to talk to you about the threat posed by the Chinese government here at home to our economic security and to our freedoms,” Wray said. “I’ve spoken a lot about this threat since I became FBI director. … In many ways, it’s reached a new level — more brazen, more damaging than ever before — and it’s vital — vital — that all of us focus on that threat together.”
American farmland
Chinese nationals — including Chinese state-owned companies and individuals linked to Beijing’s government — have increased their efforts to scoop up U.S. farmland and real estate in recent years, leading to national security concerns, especially when the land has been seemingly strategically purchased right near key U.S. military installations.
Fufeng Group, a large agricultural company with significant links to China’s government, purchased 370 acres as a location for its new wet corn mill in the agribusiness park just a short distance from Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota. The U.S. Air Force warned of the significant national security threat, and the Grand Forks City Council voted to end the project on Monday.
The Department of Agriculture has said that foreign ownership and investment in U.S. agricultural land “nearly doubled” between 2010 and 2020, revealing that foreign individuals and entities held an interest in 37.6 million acres of U.S. farmland by the end of 2020, which makes up 2.9% of all privately held agricultural land and 1.7% of the total land in the U.S.
The department also released a report saying that, through the end of 2019, Chinese investors held 191,652 acres of U.S. agricultural land at the time. The agency said in 2018 that “the incorporation of agricultural investment into broader geopolitical objectives is reflected by the prominence” of the Chinese government’s “One Belt One Road” initiative. The Congressional Research Service said in December that the Chinese initiative is designed “to expand China’s global economic reach and influence.”
Another report from the USDA noted that, in the previous decade, Chinese investment in agriculture and farmland outside its own borders had risen by over 1,000%. Purchasers from China are also the largest foreign buyers of U.S. real estate, buying $6.1 billion in U.S. homes from April 2021 to March 2022, which the National Association of Realtors said was up 30% from the prior year.
Last year, House Republicans repeatedly urged the Biden administration to investigate the “national security threat” posed by China grabbing up American farmland.
“China’s ownership of U.S. farmland is a threat to our food security and national security. An affordable, reliable food supply is critical to our nation’s well-being and prosperity and we must ensure America maintains control of our nation’s resources,” Rep. James Comer (R-KY), now chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said in October 2022, arguing that “Americans need transparency about the federal government’s efforts to address this growing problem.”
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) previously introduced the Protecting Military Installations and Ranges Act to “restrict any effort” by China, Russia, Iran, or North Korea “to buy U.S. land within 100 miles of a U.S. military installation, or 50 miles from military areas.”
This month, House Republicans introduced the “Prohibition of Agricultural Land for the People’s Republic of China Act” aimed at stopping members of the Chinese Communist Party from buying or owning U.S. farmland.
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Operation Fox Hunt
The U.S. government, in particular the FBI, has repeatedly warned about China’s “Operation Fox Hunt” — a global extrajudicial repatriation effort aimed at forcing Uyghurs and other Chinese dissidents abroad to return to China.
Last year, the Justice Department unsealed a criminal complaint against an agent of the Chinese government and charged him with participating in the CCP’s transnational repression campaign in the U.S. targeting the Chinese diaspora. The Justice Department separately accused Chinese intelligence of attempting to undermine the congressional candidacy of a former Tiananmen Square protest leader-turned-retired U.S. Army chaplain in a criminal harassment and intimidation scheme.
“We’ve had situations where they’ve planted bugs inside of Americans’ cars, for example. And one of the things that we’re seeing more and more is them hiring private investigators here in the U.S. to essentially be their agents to conduct some of this work,” Wray said in November. “So this is something that we’re trying to call out.”
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Police station in NYC
Wray confirmed in November that the bureau was investigating the Chinese government’s efforts to set up police stations in the United States, including in New York City, saying he was “very concerned” about Beijing’s “outrageous” transnational repression schemes.
“We are aware of the existence of these stations,” Wray said. “I have to be careful about discussing our specific investigative work, but to me, it is outrageous to think that the Chinese police would attempt to set up shop, you know, in New York, let’s say, without proper coordination. It violates sovereignty and circumvents standard judicial law enforcement cooperation processes.”
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Wray added: “The reason this is so important is because we have seen a clear pattern of the Chinese government, the Chinese Communist Party, exporting their repression right here into the U.S., and we’ve had now a number of indictments that you may have seen of the Chinese engaging in uncoordinated quote-unquote ‘law enforcement’ action right here in the United States, harassing, stalking, surveilling, blackmailing people who they just don’t like.”
The Chinese police station operated in lower Manhattan and housed the “Fuzhou Police Overseas Chinese Affairs bureau.” The State Department said late last month that the Chinese police station in NYC had finally been closed down.