US anger over Chinese land ownership exposes deepening rift

The author is A contributing columnist based in Chicago

Looks like the honeymoon is over. China and America have hated each other for most of my lifetime, but for a few decades, around the turn of the millennium, they were unexpectedly determined to be friends. Luckily, those were the years—between the mid-1990s and the mid-2010s—when I adopted two Chinese babies, and moved to Shanghai to raise them. It was the best time to set foot in either camp; I didn’t know how quickly it would become impossible.

Relations between my two favorite superpowers have hit their worst point since the diplomatic blunder of Richard Nixon’s visit to China in 1972 – and the signs are clear, even in the insular US Midwest where I now live Am. It’s not all chips and TikTok either: Dozens of US state and federal lawmakers are trying to block Chinese citizens from buying land in the US.

Never mind that the Chinese less than 1 percent Foreign-owned US land, according to a 2021 US Department of Agriculture report. This figure has grown significantly in recent years, and the USDA says Beijing’s foreign agricultural investment increased more than tenfold — grew from $300mn in 2009 to $3.3bn in 2016. It has shaken my motherland.

There is currently no federal law preventing foreigners from buying American land, and a proposed bill to ban purchases of American agricultural land by China, Russia, Iran and North Korea has so far gone nowhere in Congress. Washington proposed a rule this month that would ban foreigners from buying land near eight military bases. But some US states want to go even further.

Micah Brown of the National Farm Law Center says the fight over foreign ownership goes back to colonial days, and at the beginning of the last century, most Asians were barred from owning land in many states. Now the debate is raging again: 34 US states want to restrict foreign investment in land, they say.

Last week, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a law barring most Chinese citizens from buying agricultural land. His potential run for the US presidency may not be unrelated, as he quickly claimed that his state is “leading the country in terms of what we are doing to curb the influence of the Chinese Communist Party”. The United Chinese Americans, a lobby group, said the law would “legalize and normalize” discrimination and racism towards Asian Americans.

A few days ago, the governor of Montana signed legislation prohibiting governments, businesses and individuals from buying or leasing agricultural land from China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia or Venezuela. And Texas legislators are debating legislation to ban some foreigners from buying such assets after pulling the plug on a proposed Chinese wind farm investment.

South Dakota tried a different approach: When Fufeng, a Chinese food manufacturer, proposed a major investment near a military base in North Dakota, angered by the federal government’s failure to act, it is now setting up its own Cfius (Foreign Investment Committee on). , In the Fufeng case, the federal Cfius ruled that it had no jurisdiction because the base in question was not on the list of military facilities triggering the special investigation; Washington is now proposing to add it to the list.

“If a federal entity can’t investigate an obvious concern like this, something’s probably broken,” says Rachel Oglesby, deputy chief of staff at the South Dakota governor’s office. She peppers her point with references to Chinese “aggression” and “enemy” countries, and concludes that “China has become very strong in the last 10 to 15 years and people are scared about that”. She says a state-level Cfius proposal didn’t make it through South Dakota’s legislative session because she feared “friendly” countries could get caught up in red tape, but she says the issue is gaining momentum.

Antonia Zinova, foreign agricultural investment specialist at the law firm Holland & Knight, puts into words my fears about all this. “The chatter is getting stronger and stronger and at some point someone will make a silly mistake and we will all regret” the impact on bilateral relations, she says. Food and land and patriotism: it’s a toxic cocktail.