Chinese communist exposed as the second-largest foreign owner of American land



The second-largest foreign owner of American land is now apparently a well-connected Chinese communist with an affinity for Mao Zedong.

The Land Report, a magazine that tracks private landownership in the U.S., recently released its report on the top 100 landowners in the U.S., indicating Chinese billionaire Tianqiao Chen ranks 82nd overall.

Chen, originally of Zheijiang Province, China, made the list by acquiring 198,000 acres of timberland in Oregon from Fidelity National Ventures for $85 million in 2015. Last month, state tax records revealed Chen's Shanda Asset Management LLC was the current owner.

Bloomberg reported that in terms of landholdings by a foreign national, Chen is ostensibly only outdone by the Irving family of Canada, which owns 1.2 million acres in Maine.

Extra to picking up vast swathes of northwestern territory — including another 500,000 acres of timberland in Canada — Chen has purchased several valuable properties, including the Vanderbilt Mansion in Manhattan, which he picked up for $39 million, and the Seeley Mudd Estate in Los Angeles, which sold for $25 million.

The Land Report indicated that Chen and his wife also dumped $115 million into Caltech, providing them with access to a three-story, 150,000-square-foot facility on campus with their name on the side.

The Daily Caller reported on the basis of a review of Chinese-language media reports that Chen, who made his billions from online gaming, has extensive links to the Chinese communist regime. In addition to being a member of the Chinese Communist Party — which he joined in 1991 — he reportedly has executive roles in various CCP-affiliated organizations.

In addition to Chinese media outfits, financial profiles, and business filings repeatedly identifying Chen as a card-carrying CCP member, the Beijing Review indicated Chen is an admirer of Mao Zedong, the communist dictator responsible for the deaths of an estimated 65 million Chinese. China News Services, a propaganda outlet for the regime, revealed Chen has a favorite Mao quote: "Strategically we should despise all our enemies, but tactically we should take them all seriously."

Chen is not a passive CCP member, but rather an ostensible insider, having reportedly served as a representative of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference — a state group where "all the relevant united front actors inside and outside the party come together," according to former CIA officer Peter Mattis.

Responding to the Daily Caller's report, Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-Ore.) wrote on X, "I'm deeply concerned that individuals tied to the Chinese Communist Party are buying up Oregon timberland."

China, the U.S.' pre-eminent adversary on the world stage, has increasingly bought up American land over the past decade. Whereas in 2011, when Chinese investors owned 69,295 acres of American land, by year-end 2021, they reportedly controlled nearly 400,000 acres, including land near an Air Force base in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

Chavez-DeRemer indicated she was proud to cosponsor proposals aimed at preventing the purchase of certain tracts of land by foreign nationals. For instance, the "Stop China's Continuous Purchase of Land Act," introduced in July 2023, would bar states from receiving funds under certain federal programs unless they had laws on the books restricting the purchase of agricultural land by Chinese nationals.

The congresswoman told the Daily Caller, "Foreign ownership of United States lands is a serious problem that has rightfully sparked unease among farmers, ranchers and foresters across the country."

Some states have already taken action to address the potential risk of ownership by persons and organizations with ties to adversarial nations.

Missouri Republican Gov. Michael Parson signed an executive order last week barring "individuals and businesses from nations designated as foreign adversaries from purchasing agricultural land within a 10-mile radius of critical military facilities in the State of Missouri." China was counted among the nations deemed adversarial in the order.

Missouri already had a rule on the books ensuring foreign agricultural land purchases could not exceed 1% of the total farmland in the state.

"When it comes to China and other foreign adversaries, we must take commonsense precautions that protect Missourians and our security resources," said Parson.

Blaze News previously reported that Arkansas passed a law in October banning China and other prohibited foreign parties from owning land altogether. Florida, Virginia, North Dakota, and Montana are among the other states to pass similar legislation in recent years, ensuring that American land could not be snatched up by potential foes.

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Milley, who previously vowed to warn Chinese communists ahead of American attack, claims Chinese spy balloon collected no evidence



Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, claimed in an interview over the weekend that the infamous 200-foot Chinese spy balloon, which flew across the continental United States before ultimately being shot down over the Atlantic Ocean on Feb. 4, 2023, hadn't actually done any spying.

Milley, who has previously attempted to put Chinese communists' nerves at ease — even at the potential expense of an American advantage — told "CBS News Sunday Morning" that the spy balloon likely hadn't fulfilled its singular purpose while darting across the very superpower China seeks to replace.

"The intelligence community, their assessment — and it's a high-confidence assessment — [is] that there was no intelligence collection by that balloon," said Milley, invoking the confidence of the same community that continues to cast doubt on the Wuhan lab origins of COVID-19 and whose top alumni suggested the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation.

According to Milley, the spy balloon had likely been blown off course by winds at 60,000 feet. He noted further that the "particular motor on that aircraft can't go against those winds at that altitude."

This suggestion resembles the excuse originally provided by the Chinese regime as to why another one of its spy balloons had been spotted over the American interior.

"I would say it was a spy balloon that we know with high degree of certainty got no intelligence and didn't transmit any intelligence back to China," added Milley.

The State Department initially indicated in February that the vessel, which had flown above the U.S. for eight days, had "multiple antennas … likely capable of collecting and geo-locating communications." Furthermore, the department noted that China's spy balloon operations are executed by the People's Liberation Army using military technology.

The Pentagon, which rejected China's claims that the vessel was a weather airship, admitted that the spy balloon shot down in February was at least the fifth time in recent years that China had violated American sovereignty with a spy vessel, reported the Washington Post.

Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, a senior Pentagon official, said after the ship was shot down, "We know that they were looking to surveil strategic sites, to include some of our strategic bases in the continental United States," reported USA Today.

CNN reported that following the FBI's analysis of the wreckage, Ryder pre-empted Milley, suggesting in June that the balloon "did not collect while it was transiting the United States."

Government officials within the Biden administration reportedly tracked the spy balloon from Hainan, China, all the way to the U.S. without taking action. It appears as though the spy balloon may have initially intended to surveil Guam and Hawaii.

The spy vessel, which President Joe Biden characterized in May as a "silly balloon that was carrying two freight cars' worth of spying equipment," first entered American airspace on Jan. 28, north of the Aleutian Islands in Alaska.

From Alaska, the balloon passed through Canadian airspace, then was spotted over Idaho, Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, and Missouri, reported ABC News.

Along the way, the balloon may have gotten a good look at Montana's various nuclear missile silos and the state's Malmstrom Air Force Base as well as Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, the home of the stealth bomber.

After the Federal Aviation Authority instituted one of the biggest restricted airspace zones in American history, a F-22 fighter jet blasted the balloon out of the sky with a heat-seeking missile off the coast of South Carolina.

While he has acknowledged that "China is the greatest geopolitical challenge to the United States," Milley, who is set to retire by October, has recommended that Americans "lower the rhetoric a little bit with the temperature" regarding the communist nation, reported Defense One.

Milley has modeled that behavior in recent years.

While serving as the most senior uniformed adviser to former President Donald Trump, Milley telephoned his communist Chinese counterpart to reassure him that he would provide him with actionable warnings should his commander in chief decide to attack.

Milley later defended his apparent vow to nullify the strategic advantage of a possible America surprise attack for the benefit of an adversarial nation before the Senate Armed Services Committee in September 2021, suggesting he had been attempting to "manage crisis and prevent war between great powers armed with nuclear weapons," reported Politico.

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