(StraightNews.org) – The second largest landowner in the United States is a Chinese billionaire named Chen Tianqiao, according to The Land Report – a magazine that focuses on private ownership in the US. Furthermore, Mr. Tianqiao is a signed-up member of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and has held significant party posts. Newsmax reports that he served as a representative to the 11th and 12th councils of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, which brings external parties into the policy-making process, from 2008 until 2018.
He has also been an executive in the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, which is affiliated with the CCP and informs economic policy.
Among the land he owns is 198,000 acres in Oregon, which he purchased in 2015 for $85 million, and it includes Oregon’s Bull Springs Skyline Forest. Tianqiao also owns a 150,000-square-foot facility at the California Institute of Technology, the Vanderbilt mansion in New York City, and the Seeley Mudd Estate near Los Angeles.
Chen Tianqiao is a co-founder of Shanda Interactive Entertainment, an investment group. Among his personal properties are a $39 million Manhattan townhouse and a $26 million estate in Los Angeles.
Republicans have reacted to the news of his significant realty portfolio with exasperation, including New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, who called out the Department of Agriculture (USDA) last year and said it needed to increase vigilance over foreign land ownership. In a letter last February, Stefanik said the Agriculture Department failed to assess the impact of Chinese ownership on national security and how it affected local farmers and rural communities.
“Food security is national security, and I am demanding answers for why USDA failed to do its job to protect US agricultural land from our foreign adversaries,” Stefanik wrote.
Chinese ownership of American land has prompted some GOP leaders to enact legislation to prevent it. Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis has banned Chinese land purchases in the Sunshine State, and Missouri’s Mike Parson prohibited land acquisitions by Chinese or Russian buyers.
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