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Lawmakers in Texas, Florida, Arkansas and in Congress have proposed legal guidelines banning residents of China from buying land, homes or other buildings in the US.
It is a transfer they are saying will assist defend the US from interference by adversaries like China’s authorities, which they accuse of spying, theft and risking the American meals provide. Former president and 2024 presidential candidate Donald Trump has backed the efforts.
A federal proposal filed by a bipartisan group of members of Congress has been dubbed “Promoting Agriculture Safeguards and Security Act.” Eleven states are contemplating variations of the identical measure, and Iowa already has a ban in place.
The Feb. 4 downing of what U.S. officials say was a Chinese surveillance balloon has introduced contemporary consideration to the rising tensions between the U.S. and China in a number of areas, from commerce and tariff disputes to navy maneuvers.
However critics say the laws – which typically additionally embody bans on land purchases by North Koreans, Russians and Iranians – harken again to racist legal guidelines from the early 1900s stopping Asian People from turning into property house owners.
“It is scapegoating, it’s stigmatizing, and it plays into the view of Chinese Americans and Asian Americans as the perpetual foreigner: They can never be American enough,” mentioned Manjusha Kulkarni, government director of AAPI Fairness Alliance and founding father of Cease AAPI Hate. “And when you put these policies into place, you perpetuate that stigma and the attacks on Asian Americans.”
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Texas proposal seeks to ban Chinese language and different overseas nationals from proudly owning land
Though comparable payments have been beforehand filed in a number of states, a Texas proposal got new attention after Republican Gov. Greg Abbott earlier this 12 months mentioned he would signal it.
In 2021 Abbott signed a special Texas legislation forbidding residents or the governments of North Korea, Russia, Iran and China from having possession or contracts connected to critical infrastructure. The federal authorities has already hit Russia with sanctions over its invasion of Ukraine in addition to North Korea and Iran over their nuclear applications.
The proposed Texas property-ownership legislation bars purchases by folks from these 4 nations, together with Inexperienced Card and visa holders, and asylum seekers. The legal guidelines wouldn’t apply to people who find themselves already U.S. residents.
“The growing ownership of Texas land by some foreign entities is highly disturbing and raises red flags for many Texans,” Republican state Sen. Lois Kolkhorst mentioned in a press release saying her proposed legislation. “By comparison, as an American, go try to buy land near a Chinese military base and see how it works out for you. It would never happen there and it shouldn’t happen here.”
Kolkhorst mentioned she’s open to amending the invoice to permit everlasting U.S. residents born in these nations to purchase land.
The place else is that this a problem?
Kolkhorst cited a number of examples of what she known as alarming land purchases in North Dakota, Florida and Texas, together with the 2021 buy of greater than 130,000 acres by a Chinese language-controlled firm that deliberate to construct a small wind farm close to Laughlin Air Pressure Base in Texas.
Texas lawmakers, together with each of its U.S. senators, opposed the venture on the grounds that China may use the property to intervene with the bottom or the already-unreliable Texas electrical grid.
Nationally, the U.S. Air Pressure said last month {that a} proposed Chinese language-owned corn mill close to Grand Forks Air Pressure Base in North Dakota “presents a significant threat to national security,” however didn’t elaborate. Federal legislation requires a Protection Division threat evaluation every time a overseas individual or nation buys property near delicate navy websites.
“As a third-generation Montana farmer, I’m not going to sit down again and let our overseas adversaries weaken our nationwide safety by shopping for up American farmland,” said Sen. Jon Tester, a Montana Democrat, in a statement when he helped introduce the PASS Act in Congress.
Measure ‘targets immigrant communities’
Critics of the proposals say backers are using familiar rhetoric to advance a racist agenda exploiting fear to attack outsiders.
“It is a resurrection of the ‘Yellow Peril’: We’re outsiders who’re threats,” said Russell Jeung, a professor of Asian American studies at San Francisco State University. “They’re creating insurance policies that are not grounded in proof or sound financial evaluation, however are actually based mostly on stereotypes and outsized fears. And it really works.”
Kulkarni of Stop AAPI Hate said there’s little evidence the Chinese government is backing a widespread campaign of land purchases for nefarious purposes.
She supports efforts to protect the United States from foreign adversaries, but she believes the PASS Act and other proposals are written too broadly.
“For a nation that sees itself as a rustic made up of immigrants, it is a measure that targets immigrant communities in search of to develop roots in the US, and to develop into a part of the material of America,” she said.
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What are the concerns with foreign ownership?
Some U.S. security experts worry Chinese ownership of companies like Smithfield Foods threatens the U.S. food supply. Smithfield owns brands from Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs to Cook’s Ham and Kretschmar deli meats and cheese.
As of 2019, 76% of U.S. agricultural land owned by Chinese entities belonged to Smithfield, which exports pork products to China, according to federal statistics.
A May 2022 report by the congressionally chartered U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission warned that China’s need for food is driving its efforts to buy farmland abroad, along with buying or stealing the technology behind genetically modified crops, sophisticated livestock management systems and advanced farming equipment.
“The US is a worldwide chief in all of those fields, making it a main buying and selling companion and infrequently a goal of China’s efforts to strengthen its agriculture sector and meals safety, typically by illicit means,” the report said. “These efforts current a number of dangers to U.S. financial and nationwide safety.”
Extra:Video shows moment US shot down suspected Chinese spy balloon
How much of American land is owned by foreigners?
The federal government already requires foreign buyers to report when they buy agricultural land.
As of 2020, about 3% of the nation’s total farm, ranch and forest land was owned by foreign investors, according to the federal government. Of that, Chinese-backed owners represented less than 1% of the total of foreign-owned land, according to FSA, or about 550 square miles. For comparison, Rhode Island is about 1,000 square miles.
Why would foreign investors buy US land?
Experts say foreigners would want to buy U.S. land and property for the same reason the rest of us do: land and property are typically solid, safe investments that can appreciate well above a savings account.
Additionally, the transition to clean energy gives investors opportunities in a new arena, in the same way international companies own coal and other mines in the United States.
But some lawmakers fear the Chinese government is exploiting the openness of our society to spy, steal trade secrets and otherwise undercut the United States but controlling critical supply chains.
One analysis noted that Smithfield, the pork producer, uses hog farming techniques in the United States that are banned in China for being too polluting.
“… Chinese language corporations’ acquisition of hog herds in the US might save China cash and improve its home capability; nonetheless, this might additionally cut back China’s want for U.S.-sourced manufacturing and redistributes the environmental results of hog waste to U.S. communities,” the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission said last year.
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