AGAIN, CHINA:  Seems the Chinese are buying up land in the United States.  Why?  National security experts are sounding the alarm.  This land will not be used to grow egg rolls.  A matter of serious concern.  From Daily Mail: 

A Chinese company purchased hundreds of acres of North Dakota farmland mere minutes from a major US Air Force base, prompting national security fears as the communist country adds to its nearly 200,000 acres of US agricultural land worth $1.9 billion.

The China-based food producer, Fufeng Group, plans to build a corn-milling plant on its newly acquired 300 acres of land in Grand Forks, just 20 minutes down the road from the Grand Forks Air Force Base, where some of the nation's most sensitive drone technology is based.

The purchase raised suspicions from military officers, national security experts and lawmakers alike. 

The move could give China unprecedented access to the goings-on at the Air Force base, which also has a space-networking center that's been characterized as 'the backbone of all US military communications across the globe,' according to CNBC.

Criticism of the Fufeng purchase comes as American lawmakers have been outspoken about limiting China's ownership of valuable American agricultural land, which, as of 2019, consisted of at least 192,000 acres.

After the Fufeng Group purchased the North Dakota land for $2.6 million this year, Air Force Major Jeremy Fox wrote a memo in April characterizing the move as being emblematic of Chinese efforts to install themselves close to sensitive US defense installations.

He argued that the Fufeng property is located at just the right location for the company to intercept communications coming from the Air Force base.

'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. 

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.'

A spokesperson for the Air Force maintained Fox's memo was not the military's official position on the matter. 

They instead called it Fox's 'personal assessment of potential vulnerabilities' and declined to offer an opinion.

A representative for the Fufeng Group's US subsidiary said fears of espionage couldn't be further from the truth.

'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. 

Despite Fufeng's assurances, Fox was not the only government official raise suspicions, with the US government's U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission raising concerns in a May report.

'The location of the land close to the base is particularly convenient for monitoring air traffic flows in and out of the base, among other security related concerns,' the commission's report said.

COMMENT:  The mainstream media has not shown deep concern.  After all, it's only China.  How could those peace-loving people, who build iPads, be a threat to us?  Why, that's as silly as thinking that Japan could attack Pearl Harbor.

July 27, 2022