Attempts to ban Chinese ownership of US land advance to federal level

The controversial legislation that some US states have proposed to bar Chinese from owning land could be federalized, as some members of Congress have introduced a similar bill targeting Chinese citizens.

The bill, introduced by US Representative Mike Gallagher, a Wisconsin Republican who is also chairman of the House select committee on Chinese competition, seeks to block companies of China and other "foreign adversaries" from purchasing land near military bases and other sensitive sites.

If passed, the bill would give the federal Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) final authority over a deal involving Chinese buyers.

It would also require CFIUS to raise the approval threshold by establishing a "presumption of non-resolvability" — a presumption that the "national security" concerns cannot be resolved — when reviewing a transaction.

Currently not all military sites are subject to CFIUS jurisdiction, so the bill would expand the list of sensitive national security sites to all military facilities, intelligence sites, national laboratories and research centers affiliated to defense-funded universities.

The committee led by Gallagher has been naming companies and other entities for ties to China since it was set up earlier this year.

Gallagher sent a letter to officials at the University of California, Berkeley, last week, requesting extensive information about the Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute.

The committee claimed that the collaboration's research could help China gain economic and technological advantage. But Berkeley has repeatedly maintained that its research is focused on fundamental research and openly published for the global scientific community.

Facing such concerns, many universities in the United States have emphasized that the openly published research means there is little value for foreign governments to infiltrate the academic partnerships.

The Republican majority in the House of Representatives has ramped up its fight against a perceived threat from China and recently made US farmland a battleground.

There are several bills in Congress aimed at limiting Chinese ownership of US land. At the state level, a growing number of states have passed or are considering measures to ban "foreign adversaries" — particularly China — from buying farmland.

Florida passed restrictions on property ownership last month, targeting Chinese citizens and those from several other "countries of concern".

At least eight Republican-led states have passed such laws, and more than two dozen states are considering similar ones, according to the National Agricultural Law Center.

Proponents of the laws, mostly Republicans, have frequently cited concerns about food security and the need to protect military bases and other sensitive installations.

Contrary to their claim that Chinese citizens are buying large amounts of property in the country, the US Department of Agriculture's data shows that Chinese own a tiny fraction of US land.

Overall, foreign entities own just more than 3 percent — or 40 million acres — of all privately held agricultural land in the United States as of 2021. Among the 3 percent of foreign-owned land, the Chinese share is less than 1 percent, according to the Farm Service Agency's report.

Canadian investors own the largest amount of foreign-held land at 31 percent, followed by the Netherlands with 12 percent, Italy with 7 percent, the United Kingdom with 6 percent, and Germany with 6 percent.

A 2021 analysis by the bipartisan Center for Strategic and International Studies found that foreign purchases of US agricultural land are not a major threat to US food security. Experts called for lawmakers to act on evidence, not suspicion.

The moves have prompted a backlash from the Asian American community and stoked anxieties among some experts who see echoes of past discriminatory laws in the United States like the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 law that banned Chinese from immigrating to the United States.

A similar bill in Texas has particularly recalled the so-called alien land laws that were passed in numerous states between the 1880s and 1920s to specifically bar Asian people from owning land.

Texas' Senate bill originally called for banning individual Chinese citizens from buying any Texas real estate. It was supported by Governor Greg Abbott.

The bill was later rewritten twice to exclude legal permanent residents and the purchase of residential homes in response to statewide protests. But it still didn't pass the House State Affairs Committee, which declined to hold a hearing on the legislation.

Democrats have been vocal in warning that the legislation had the potential of fueling anti-Asian and anti-immigrant sentiments.

"Banning buying homes based on citizenship and registering your property did not bode well in history," said Democratic Representative Grace Meng of New York. "This is the Republicans rewriting the Chinese Exclusion Act."

In response to the laws passed in Florida and under consideration in other states, Democratic US representatives Judy Chu of California and Al Green of Texas introduced a bill in May to stop the state laws.

The Preemption of Real Property Discrimination Act immediately received endorsement from nearly 30 organizations.