A company with ties to the Chinese Communist Party recently purchased 300 acres of American farmland in North Dakota, just 20 minutes from a U.S. military base.
China-based food producer, Fufeng Group, just purchased hundreds of acres of North Dakota farmland mere minutes from a major U.S. Air Force base, raising national security concerns as the communist country adds to its nearly 200,000 acres of U.S. agricultural land worth $1.9 billion.
The state-owned company plans to build a corn-milling plant on its newly acquired 300 acres of land in Grand Forks, a 20 minute drive from the Grand Forks Air Force Base, where some of the nation’s most sensitive drone technology is based.
The purchase raised suspicions from military officers, national security experts and lawmakers alike while going largely unnoticed by the bought-and-paid-for mainstream media.
The move could provide the CCP with extraordinary access to activities taking place at the Air Force base, which also has a space-networking centre that’s been characterized by CNBC as ‘the backbone of all U.S. military communications across the globe.’
Criticism of the Fufeng purchase comes as some American lawmakers have been outspoken about limiting China’s ownership of valuable American agricultural land, which, as of 2019, consisted of more than 192,000 acres.
After the Fufeng Group purchased the North Dakota land for $2.6 million this year, Air Force Major Jeremy Fox wrote a memo in April characterizing the move as being emblematic of Chinese efforts to install themselves close to sensitive U.S. defense installations.
Fox argued that the Fufeng property is located at just the right location for the company to intercept communications coming from the Air Force base.
“Some of the most sensitive elements of Grand Forks exist with the digital uplinks and downlinks inherent with unmanned air systems and their interaction with space-based assets,” Fox wrote.
The fact that the CCP has engaged in economic warfare with the West for over twenty years and has been overt in its stealing of intellectual property and military secrets, it is a gross dereliction of duty by U.S. government officials that China-based companies would be allowed to purchase farmland anywhere in the United States, let alone a few miles down the road from an air force base.
By Himalaya
