This week's revelation that a Chinese billionaire and member of the Chinese Communist Party is the second-largest foreign farmland owner in the United States has left many wondering why Chen Tianqiao's $85 million purchase was a secret for nearly a decade. This caused anger among politicians.
Chen, co-founder of Shanda Interactive Entertainment, purchased nearly 200,000 acres of farmland in Oregon in 2015 for about $430 an acre. According to the land reporta magazine focused on private land ownership in the United States.
However, his purchase of the land is not recorded in government records of land ownership by foreign investors. The Daily Mail reported on Saturday.
New York Republican Congresswoman Elise Stefanik told the Post on Saturday that the Biden administration has “dropped the ball” on protecting American farmland from usurpation by “foreign adversaries.”
“Communist China is purchasing American farmland in order to subvert American sovereignty, weaken our agricultural industry, compromise our military installations, and upend American rural communities,” Stefanik said. .
Chen's ownership of the land only became clear this week after the state publicly named one of his companies as the beneficiary of the property. The Daily Caller first reported.
Chen, 50, owns a $39 million townhouse in Manhattan and a $26 million property in Los Angeles, where he is based. According to reports, he joined the Chinese Communist Party at the age of 18 and rose to the rank of senior party official.
Stefanik and other councilors were fired last year. letter It called on the U.S. Department of Agriculture to increase its vigilance against foreign ownership of agricultural land.
“Food security is national security,” she wrote.
Montana farmers and Sen. Jon Tester on Friday renewed their call on Congress to protect America's land security.
“As we learn more about the details of this developing situation, it highlights the need for Congress to do more to protect America's agricultural security,” Democrats said in a statement this week.
Stefanik was among a bipartisan group of lawmakers who sent a letter to Agriculture Secretary Thomas Vilsack to protest what they say is lax federal oversight of foreign land purchases.
It's unclear why Mr. Chen's purchases aren't listed in government records. The Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act requires foreign investors to report new interests in U.S. farmland to the Department of Agriculture within 90 days of the transaction.
Canada's Irving family is the country's largest foreign landowner, owning more than 1.2 million acres in Maine.
