Chinese firms buying land near the US military base could be a part of the pattern of sub-national surveillance and espionage by Chinese firms, American Military News reported.
Several Chinese firms have bought or have begun efforts to buy large plots of land near key US military bases in recent years. Fufeng Group, a China-based company is one of the companies which purchased 300 acres of farmland near Grand Forks, North Dakota, a rural area that lies about a 90-minute drive from the Canadian border. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) report, released in May, in which it said that the new Fufeng Group mill would be on a 370-acre plot of land located about 12 miles from the Grand Forks Air Force Base. The land purchase near the US military base could be “particularly convenient for monitoring air traffic flows in and out of the base, among other security-related concerns,” according to the report. Alarmed after Fufeng Group bought the land near US Air Force Base, 30 US lawmakers, in a letter to Government Accountability Office (GAO), requested the agency to find out the extent of and trends in foreign investment in agricultural land. It also asked for a review of whether current standards for filing accurately capture the origin of the investment, Nikkei Asia reported. Prior to the Fufeng Group’s effort to buy up land near Grand Forks Air Force Base, another Chinese firm had begun efforts to buy up around 140,000 acres of land located about 70 miles from Laughlin Air Force Base. The Chinese Firm, Guanghui Energy Company Ltd, wanted to build a massive wind farm known as the Blue Hills Wind Project, reported American Military News.