China owns a lot of U.S. land and seeks to buy more. Could this be benign? Well, I suppose it could be. However, it is liable to be good for China and bad for the U.S.

Some of the land China has acquired is agricultural, but a lot of it is suspiciously close to U.S. military installations. Why would that be, and why do we allow it? That risks security compromises of sensitive U.S. military assets.

According to Newsweek, “Mysterious drones have been spotted flying around one of the U.S.‘s most sensitive military areas, leaving defense officials and local authorities stumped as to who is behind the unknown uncrewed aerial vehicles zipping across the sky around a major U.S. air base. U.S. military personnel reported drones appearing in restricted airspace over Langley Air Force Base in Hampton, Virginia, shortly after sunset during a period of more than two weeks.” Could China be conducting surveillance of sensitive bases from land purchased near the bases? Langley contains highly classified functions critical to the defense of the nation. The map below shows land purchased by China near some of our bases. This was published in a June New York Post article:

China is not famous for caring about U.S. policy or law — or anyone else’s. A short review of recent events on China’s lawlessness follows. About 10 years ago, China started militarizing various nautical sites in the South China Sea (SCS). Some of these locations were in international waters, and others were in the territorial waters of other countries. In 2016, the UN Permanent Court of Arbitration ruled that China was illegally building military facilities on an island owned by the Philippines. China just ignored the Court and continued to build that air base and port on the island. Now, it is a fully functioning military base of the PRC in the middle of the SCS, and it is stolen land. China just thumbs its nose at the Philippines and everyone else. They have built dozens of outposts in the SCS. This map from Business Insider shows the details of their theft:

Then there is the Nine Dash Line. The map below shows what China tells the world is China’s owned part of the SCS — everything inside the dashed red lines. Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, Vietnam, Brunei, Indonesia, and Malaysia all disagree with China. If the Chinese are treating their close neighbors like this, there is no question they have even less compunction about breaking U.S. law and buying up land close to U.S. sensitive sites and using that land to compromise us. Reports indicate that with our porous borders, an estimated 50,000 young males of military age have illegally entered the U.S. in the past few years and disappeared into the hinterlands. No one knows where they are or what they are doing.

We all know of the illegal takeover of Hong Kong several years ago. China unilaterally broke a 50-year agreement with the UK to allow Hong Kong to function autonomously. China just waltzed into Hong Kong, took over in violation of international law and the China/UK agreement, and began to rule. Anyone objecting was locked up, and many just disappeared. How’s that for a law-abiding nation? Considering its illegal behavior, how could the U.S. possibly trust that China’s intention in buying up land in the U.S. was benign? It is not. It is to spy on our bases and to set up things in America that will make it easier for them to conquer us.

The Department of Treasury has a Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) that has purview over land purchases by foreign entities. So, we do have laws and entities that are supposed to protect U.S. interests from foreign nefarious deeds. From its website: “CFIUS is an interagency committee authorized to review certain transactions involving foreign investment in the United States and certain real estate transactions by foreign persons, in order to determine the effect of such transactions on the national security of the United States.” So, CFIUS is supposed to protect us. But does it?

States are nervous that not enough is being done to protect their interests, and 20 passed laws to protect their part of America from China.

Even with controls in effect by some states and CFIUS, many worry that China will just go around our laws and committees and use shell companies or foreign agents to buy land under false pretenses. We know that China will stop at nothing to get what it wants. The Hong Kong takeover and the incessant diplomatic war of attrition and harassment of Taiwan and the Philippines in the SCS provide ample evidence that the Chinese will do what they want to get their way. International law or U.S. law does not deter them in the least. What should be done about this?

Print out this article and send it to your Congress members and demand that they take effective action to prevent China from buying U.S. land, especially close to our military bases. In recent years, China has been treated with kid gloves. It’s time to get serious. We have tools at our disposal to bend China to our will. China sends over 300,000 students to the U.S. to study in our universities. We could send them all home. Hundreds of thousands more come to sightsee every year. We could deny them visas. We have huge economic power. We could use our economic clout to put extreme pressure on their regime, economy, and people. Our economic power exercised the right way and over the right commodities, especially energy, would be a real game changer.

The time to reverse the trend and seriously get China’s attention is now — before it becomes even stronger. Act now to protect our country!