This week’s revelation that a Chinese billionaire and his Communist Party members are the second-largest foreign owners of farmland in the US has angered politicians, who want to know why Chen Tianqiao’s $85 million purchase was kept secret for nearly a decade.
Chen, co-founder of Shanda Interactive Entertainment, bought nearly 200,000 acres of farmland in Oregon in 2015 for about $430 an acre, according to Land Report, a magazine focused on private land ownership in the US.
However, the purchase of the acreage does not appear 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 US farmland from being seized by “foreign enemies.”
Chen Tianqiao, co-founder of Shanda Interactive Entertainment, bought nearly 200,000 acres of farmland in Oregon in 2015 at a reported $430 per acre. Alamy Stock Photo
“Communist China is buying US farmland to subvert our sovereignty, undermine our agricultural industry, encroach on our military installations, and upend rural America,” Stefanik said.
Chen’s land ownership only became known this week after the state publicly named one of his companies as the property’s beneficial owner, the Daily Caller first reported.
Chen, 50, also owns a $39 million Manhattan townhouse and a $26 million estate in Los Angeles, where he is based. He joined the CCP when he was 18, and has risen through the party’s executive ranks, according to reports.
Chen owns nearly 200,000 acres of farmland in Oregon. Mason & Morse Ranch/Ranchland.com
Last year, Stefanik and other members of Congress released a letter to the US Department of Agriculture, urging the agency to increase its vigilance on foreign ownership of farmland.
“Food safety is national security,” he wrote.
Chen owns land in the Bull Springs Sky Line Forest in Oregon. Mason & Morse Ranch/Ranchland.com
Montana farmers and Senator Jon Tester renewed demands Friday for Congress to protect US soil security.
“While we are learning more about the specifics surrounding this situation, it underscores the need for Congress to do more to protect American agricultural security,” the Democrat said in a statement this week.
Stefanik was among a group of bipartisan lawmakers who wrote to Agriculture Secretary Thomas Vilsack to protest what they say is the federal government’s lax oversight of foreign land purchases.
Chen Tianqiao is the second-largest foreign owner of US farmland, but his 2015 purchase of nearly 200,000 acres in Oregon was not disclosed until this week. Getty Images
It is not clear why Chen’s purchase did not appear in government records. The Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act requires foreign investors to report any new interests in American farmland to the Department of Agriculture within 90 days of the transaction.
Canada’s Irving family is the largest foreign landowner in the country, owning more than 1.2 million acres in Maine.
Categories: Trending
Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
