The revelation this week that a Chinese billionaire and member of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is the second-largest foreign owner of farmland in the United States has sparked outrage among politicians who want to know why the purchase of a property worth $85 Million US dollars (114 million Canadian dollars) by Chen Tianqiao remained secret for almost a decade.
Chen, co-founder of Shanda Interactive Entertainment, purchased nearly 200,000 acres (81,000 hectares) of Oregon farmland in 2015 for about $430 an acre, according to Land Report, a magazine that focuses on private land in the United States.
However, the land purchase does not appear in government records of land ownership by foreign investors, the Chron reported on Saturday.
Elise Stefanik, a Republican congresswoman from New York, told The Post on Saturday that the Biden administration has “given up” on protecting U.S. farmland from takeover by “foreign adversaries.”
“Communist China is buying American farmland to undermine our sovereignty, undermine our agricultural industry, invade our military installations and disrupt America’s rural communities,” Ms. Stefanik said.
Mr. Tianqiao, 50, also owns a $39 million (CAD $52 million) home in Manhattan and a $26 million (CAD $35 million) property in Los Angeles, where he resides. He reportedly joined the CCP at the age of 18 and rose to the party's leadership ranks.
Last year, Ms. Stefanik and other members of Congress sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Agriculture urging it to increase its vigilance against foreign ownership of farmland.
“Food security is national security,” she wrote.
It is unclear why Chen's purchase is not listed in government records.
The Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act requires foreign investors to report any new interest in U.S. farmland to the Department of Agriculture within 90 days of the transaction.
The Canadian Irving family is the country's largest foreign landowner, with more than 1.2 million acres of land in Maine.