China’s Purchase of U.S. Farmland 20 minutes from Air Force Base Concerns National Security Experts

A China-based food producer with ties to the communist regime is concerning to the United States after it has purchased over 192,000 acres of agricultural land across the country. The biggest concern is the 300 acres purchased in North Dakota which is located only 20 minutes away from a military base.

20 minutes down the road from the Grand Forks Air Force Base located in North Dakota, Fufeng Group bought the acreage with alleged plans to build a corn-milling plant. The Air Force Base houses “some of the nation’s most sensitive drone technology,” reports The Daily Mail.

“The purchase raised suspicions from military officers, national security experts and lawmakers alike” added the news outlet. In April, Air Force Major Jeremy Fox wrote a memo characterizing the move as “emblematic of Chinese effort to infiltrate sensitive US defense installations.”

China now owns nearly 200,000 acres which amounts to $1.9 billion worth of US agricultural land. “Some of the most sensitive elements of Grand Forks exist with the digital uplinks and downlinks inherent with unmanned air systems and their interaction with space-based assets,” Fox wrote in his memo.

Such interceptions “would present a costly national security risk causing grave damage to United States’ strategic advantages.” “Passive collection of those signals would be undetectable, as the requirements to do so would merely require ordinary antennas tuned to the right collecting frequencies,” he said, “This introduces a grave vulnerability to our Department of Defense installations and is incredibly compromising to US National Security.”

Not surprisingly, A representative for the Fufeng Group’s US subsidiary said they have no plans for espionage. “I can’t imagine anyone that we hire that’s going to even do that,” Fufeng USA chief operating officer Eric Chutorash told CNBC, saying he knew the company “absolutely” would not spy on US military interests.

“We’re under US law, I’m an American citizen, I grew up my whole life here, and I am not going to be doing any type of espionage activities or be associated with a company that does, and I know my team feels the exact same way,” he said.